8 Effective Ways to Get Rid of Ants in Snail Farm Very Fast
Ants and insect infestation in your snail pen are some of the reasons why your snails are dying incessantly. To stop the death roll, you need to get rid of ants and other insects in your snail pen immediately.
Even though you have tried many methods in the past, in this article, you will learn the eight effective ways to get rid of ants and other insect pests in your snail farm.
Let this material be your daily guide for stopping all ant and insect infestation.
Before we get into the details of this guide, let’s answer this very common question people ask, “do ants kill and eat snails?” We’ll try to answer that question in the next sub-heading…
Can ants kill and eat snails?
The answer is, yes. There are some species of ants that will kill and eat snails.
That’s why one of the problems many snail farmers face is that of ants invading their snail farms.
The moment you see the first set of ants on your snail farm, don’t hesitate to spring into action and eradicate them immediately.
If you allow the ants to take over your snail farm, you will wake up every morning to pick up dead snails on your farm.
How to get rid of ants and other snail pests from your snail farm
To effectively get rid of the ants and pests in your snail farm, you must do the following;
1. Securely cover your snail pens with mosquito nets:
As you try to prevent ant invasion into your snail farm, the first thing to consider is the construction of your snail pens.
How did you construct your snail pens? Are the pens well covered with mosquito nets?
To learn how to construct your snail pen effectively, check out these 6 different types of snail houses and how to construct them.
We all know that there are some ants with wings that can fly.
If those ants should fly over your trench and land in your snail far, subsequently, they will start reproducing.
When you do not cover your snail pen properly, these ants will crawl their way into the pens and destroy your snails.
A quick way to get rid of ants on your farm is to make sure they don’t find a place to settle in the first.
Use mosquito nets to construct a good lid for your snail pens.
Likewise, if you are running a free-range snail farm, make sure you cover the entire area with mosquito nets.
2. Dig a trench around your snail farm and fill it with water:
Probably not all ants can fly, however crawling termites, centipedes, and other insect pests can crawl into your farm.
One best way to prevent this is by digging a trench around your farm and filling it with water.
The trench could be a foot deep and a foot wide.
When constructing the pen, make sure you use good materials.
Also, add enough cement to make sure that water does not destroy the trench.
This is important because you will always fill up the trench with water all year in and year out as long as you still have your snail farm in that location.
Watch this video to see how to keep ants away from your snail farm using a trench.
3. Treat the soil in your snail farm.
By now, you already know that snails do most of their daily activities on the soil.
Whether it’s feeding, laying eggs or they just want to bury their heads, it’s all done in the soil.
Interestingly, most of these ants and insects that affect snails also thrive in the soil.
So, what can you do to prevent ants and other pests from killing your snails?
The best thing to do is to treat the soil. By treating the soil, you tend to destroy every living organism in the soil.
Also, treating the soil in your snail farm destroys the insect eggs buried in the soil.
How to treat the soil in your snail farm
While there are different methods of treating the soil for your snail farm, the three methods that I recommend are;
– Heating the soil directly under direct heat from firewood.
– Treat the soil with neem.
– Soil solarization – Soil solarization is a non-chemical environmentally friendly method for controlling pests using solar power.
This method is best for people who are into free-range snail farming because of the process it takes.
It requires you to cover the soil with a plain polythene sheet that traps sunlight heat, consequently increasing the soil’s temperature.
As the temperature increases under the plain polythene sheet, it destroys many soil-borne insects and diseases too.
With these three soil treatment techniques, you can completely get rid of ants from your snail farm.
4. Plant pest-repellant plants:
Pest-repellant plants are crops you deliberately plant around your snail farm to wade off pests.
Some pests are allergic or respond negatively to certain types of plants.
By planting those repellant plants, those pests like a snake and other reptiles will not be comfortable entering your snail farm.
Rosemary, mint, marigold, and lemongrass can also repel certain types of insects and pests from invading your snail farm.
5. Remove all leftover food to prevent ant invasion on your snail farm:
Ultimately, most of the farmers who suffer from ant invasion in their snail farm suffer because they leave leftover food in the snailery.
Snail foods are mostly perishable e.g. fruits, and you know how quickly fruits spoil once you cut them open.
Bacterial acts on the fruit remain immediately, causing decay.
As the fruit decays, it attracts all manner of insects to the snail farm.
It’s best for you to remove any leftover meal every morning and replace it with a new food tray.
If you want to know the kind of food snails like eating, check out these 7 categories of essential foods for snails.
6. Remove unhatched eggs from your snail hatchery:
Once you take your eggs to the snail hatchery, it takes anywhere between 21 – 40 days for most of the eggs to hatch.
If after 40 days you still have eggs that did not hatch, make sure you take them out of the incubator immediately.
Also, remove all snail eggshells from the hatchery after hatching.
The smell of broken or rotten eggs can attract ants and other insects to the hatchery.
By removing the leftover eggs and eggshells, you will be keeping all those pests away from your snail farm.
If you are having a problem hatching most of your snail eggs, check out this best way of hatching over 80% of your snail eggs.
7. Sanitize the snail farm regularly to eliminate pests:
Anything clean is good. Just the way human beings maintain quality levels of personal hygiene, snails also need their environment to be neat.
If you want to prevent pests from affecting your snail farm, you must sanitize the snail farm regularly.
Clean the trays you use to serve snail foods. Also, wash the drinking plates and serve only clean water to the snails.
Don’t forget to also remove all leftover food and till the soil at an interval.
Tilling soil helps mix the snail feces with the soil and leaves room for healthy roaming in the snail pen.
Don’t forget to also sanitize all your snail farming equipment to make sure they don’t house any insects.
8. Use organic pesticides to destroy snail pests
One good way to ensure that soldier ants and other insects do not end up destroying your snail farm is to use organic pesticides.
Some of the organic pesticides for snail farming include’
- pyrethrin
- lime sulfur
- sabadilla
- garlic
- onions
- tomato leaves (crushed)
- tobacco water
- snuff
- neem oil
Before using any organic pesticide on your snail farm, first, harvest the snails on your farm.
You can also spray organic pesticides a few days before stocking your farm with snails.
Doing this will help destroy stubborn soldier ants from attacking your snail farm.
Conclusion
I’m sure you know that the more snails you keep alive using best management practices the more profit you can make.
Hence, it is very important to get rid of ants and all insect pests that try to invade your snail farm.
With these eight simple methods of eliminating ants, I believe you will not have ants come close to your snail pen again.
Did you learn something new from this article?
I believe anything good is worth sharing with others, so save a snail farm today by sharing this article with someone.
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- Top 8 Essential Food for Snails | What Do Snails Eat?
- Benefits and limitations of snail farming Business
- Top 11 Equipment Needed For Snail Farming
- Types of Land Snails For Snail Farming
- How to Build Good Snail Housing [With Pictures]
- 8 Effective Ways to Get Rid of Ants in Snail Farm Very Fast
- 5 Most Effective Ways to Treat the Soil for Snail Farming [With Video]
![5 Most Effective Ways to Treat the Soil for Snail Farming [With Video]](https://agro4africa.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Effective-soil-treatment-techniques-snail-farming-768x382.jpeg)
Hello Sir, there is these small insert (White in colour) that stay around my snails, and under the leaves in my pen, pls how can I get rid of them.
Remove the snails and wash them under running water. Clean your pen thoroughly and treat the soil with before returning the snails.
Good afternoon, pls how often do you have to treat the soil in your pen?
It is more of an observation thing than a fixed routine. Just observe the behaviour of your snails and the condition of their pen to know whether it’s time to treat the soil.
Wow, amazing teachings. God bless you man, I think most of my answers are now answered. Especially, that of the organic means of getting raid of ants and other pests.
Actually I am going into the green house system of farming snails with which I have finished with the construction of the house by reading other books but was waiting for this part of learning to add up to complete what I can start for now.
But please is there any whatsap group number from you I can join?
Sir, ‘am new in these business, I am also trying to build a natural snailry pen. Presently am using a standard room built pen constructed to a wall of my compound. Presently I planted water leaf in the pen, and kept some used tyre in the pen plus heaps of dry weeds for them to lay their eggs.
How do I treat the soil with all these therapy you made mention of. Do I remove all the above-mentioned. I equally notice that some of snail climb the wall to the ceiling area. Finally, even though, I have not noticed any ant yet, but I observed that lizard crept inside because of some tiny flee flying around.
Thanks
When you say natural snailry pen, What came to my mind is free-range snail farming.
If that is the case, you only need to ensure that you dig a perimeter trench around the pen to create a cutter.
Then, fill the trench with water until 3/4 full.
Add black engine oil to the water so that creeping insects can not find their way into your pen.
How to prepare garlic solution
Just grind the garlic.
Which snail is the best for business and how long does it take to start laying
The best snail depends on what you choose. You can select from Achatina marginata, Achatina fulica and Achatina achatina.
But I will recommend the Achatina marginata species because they grow big and are highly prolific breeders.
As for the egg laying, the snails starts laying immediately if you bought Point of Lay (POL) snails. POLs are between 12 – 18 months old.
pls can one use Rambo Insecticide powder to control ants in my snail pen, someone said he used it and it worked without harming the snails, pls is this possible
Yes, you can spray it around the farming and around the lid of the pen.
But make sure you don’t spray it inside the pen where the snails are since it contains poisonous chemicals.
Please Sir,I used three layers of planks instead of blocks and now am seeing some small millipedes in my snailery…What do I do please,I have just 210pcs of snail and I don’t know if they have started laying eggs because they’re very big now…I need ur advice please….
If you are using a wooden snail pen, then you need to ensure that the foot of the snail house is in a container containing black engine oil. Secondly, snails start laying when they are 12 to 18 months old. Also, you need to ensure that the conditions within your pen are right for snail reproduction.
Sir, I am now well equipped to go into snail farming .
Fantastic!! Best of luck to you.
Good day our great educator, i tried joining us WhatsApp group but it is full. Is there a way to be part of ur group Pls?
Please, try again
1 How do we prepare the neem water
2.Also please the preparation of the ginger and onions.
3.Do one apply the organic pesticides on the pen surrounding or the pen soil
1. Neem water is prepared by blending the neem leaves, add water and then filter the chaff out.
2. Dried ginger and onions blended together goes well.
3. Use the neem water to treat the soil while your spray the ginger and onions around the pen to prevent flying and crawling insects from perching.
Do we have to check for the eggs daily? Which is the best time for egg checking?
Check for eggs as soon as your snails start laying. Note that all the snails will not lay on the same day. So, you may choose to check every day.
However, it’s okay to check every 3 – 7 days depending on the size of your farm.
How do we prepare the neem water?
It sits possible to use block to build snail house
I know I use wood is not ok what of block
Blocks are perfect!
Please your phone number
I prefer emails. Send to [email protected]
1. What should be the depth of the soil in the pen.
2. Is jumbo point of laying better than the normal breeders
3 feet deep is okay for easy access.
Normal breeders and jumbo snails are about the same age.
What type of pawpaw fruit does snail eat ripe or unripe
Ripe
Hello ,
I do have one or two cockroaches finding their way into my cupboard pen. Are they injurious? And how can I get rid of them since they can craw into the pen through a small hole.
Make sure you secure your pen properly and follow the instructions in this guide http://agro4africa.com/ants-pests-snail-farm/
When treated with neem water, how long will it last before sending your snails back.
You can replace the snails into the pen after the soil has cooled down.
Can I pour used engine oil around my snail pen to prevent crawling insect from getting to my snails.
Sure you can, as long as it does not get washed into the pen.
The best way is to dig a trench, cement it and pour water in it before pouring the engine oil.
That way, the oil will not dry up easily.
Thank u very much for the information. My challenge is that my snails are already in the pen and they many. Pls can I use onions and garlic to drive away the ants without hurting my snails.
Actually, you will have to move your snails and then treat the soil before putting them back.
It’s best to get rid of those ants once and for all.
Sorry, you can’t do that.
Evacuate the snails and then treat the soil before replacing the snails.
If possible, wash the snails before replacing them in the pen.
Sir please I’m sorry to disturb you. I ha en a lot of baby snails, many of them that I can’t even start picking them out of the snailry cos of how small they are. what is your advice on this. They are like sound in the snailry and can’t be selected out of the pen for any treatment.
Use a plastic spoon to pick them out.
If you don’t treat the soil immediately, ants will kill them all anyways.🤷🏽♂️
Pls
1. How does one use onions and ginger to treat d soil.
2. Do we put those organic pesticides directly in d soil or around it?
Please sir, my snailry contains a lot of little snails which I can possibly try to harvest to control pest. I have really lost a lot of snails as result to pest eg Ants. what do I do in this regard.
I will advice you take out all the snails and then treat the soil with neem water.
Another method is to heat the soil using a metallic drum or head pan to kill insect larvae and other living things in the soil.
Allow the solid to cool down and water to the right texture before reintroducing your snails into the pen.
I hope to write a full article on the step by step guide of soil treatment for snail farming very soon.
Stay tuned.