Live feeding vs. dead feeding

[Dragonlord47]

I've been wondering if someone has an Ant sp. that actually prefers live insects over dead ones, is it still considered inhumane to feed them living insects?

In the Ant wiki it says that "Dorymyrmex bureni hunt living insects, even other winged ants."

I also remember reading that trap jaws actually prefer to hunt there food rather then eat already dead insects.

If this is a part of there normal natural living conditions in the wild, I would assume it's better to provide them with what they are breed to do.

Share your thoughts.

[cheetawolf]

pre kill the insects so the guts are fresh and the ants wont have trouble subduing it and possibly gatting hurt

[Hunter36o]

Sorry cheeta but I think you missed his point.

For what I have read and watched on ants, yes some do prefer to hunt living food. AC's YouTube has a species on ants who's name I forgot but we have called the black panthers who love to hunt to the point they are always hunting the spring tails even when food has been provided and taken by the colony. It's kinda built into them, some will even do it for sport but unlike humans they will eat their sport so it is okay.

For these types of ants I would recommend based on the research I have done, is to do as follows.

With a small colony just after founding stages, you do not want them to get hurt to much so pre kill the food but literally just before u drop it in. Now I mean pick a living peace, crush it's head slightly but do not squeeze so it's completely flats and opened like we would other ants and let the still kicking insect get eaten.

For strong well established colonies, live food is fine once you give them in the right sizes. For example, a big colony make eat two adult dubia roaches, but as for live food it would be safer to use younger smaller roaches in batches of two or 3 in separate area of the outworld twice a day so the ants can easily overwhelm them.

For many it is crule to give live food, but when some species are built to be hunters and not scavengers although sad, we much tend to ALL their needs. Thankfully my ants like scavenging so I am lucky because I even hate pre killing their food but it is better then watching them suffer.

[PwnerPie]

I crush my bigger food. then let the ants chase wingless fruit flies. the ants love them and it gives them some practice hunting. The fruit flies are tough to catch!

[JoeHostile1]

I recently decided that I will only feed pre-killed food to my ants. I came to this conclusion after watching the reactions of live food givin to ants.

Any type of worm or larvae 100% feel something wheather it’s pain or something else when they are being attacked. This is observable by watching an ant bite the larvae which will start withering in what appears to be pain.

Another thing that made me feel uncomfortable was feeding house spiders to ants. I would drop a house spider into the outworld of my tetramorium colony. There could be up to 200 ants in the outworld. An ant would grab the house spider and the house spider would react violently and run to the other side of the outworld. Other ants would try and grab the spider while it was running, but the spider is too fast. The spider would get to the other side of the outworld and try to climb out; but I would knock it off the wall and it would fall into the ants who would then swarm it. I realized in the wild the ants would never be able to catch this spider and take it down This would happen a few times until finally the spider was too weak to escape again. Then it would take the ants 20 minutes or more to finally kill the spider. I realized if the ants aren’t able to kill the spider on their own and I’m not going to allow the spider to escape then why would I put a live spider in there in the first place? Sure it was interesting the first few times watching how the ants take down their prey, but I certainly don’t derive any pleasure from watching a spider fight for its life for 20,30 minutes ect.

The final straw for me was when I caught a moth and fed it to my tetramorium colony. The moth proceeded to lay dozens and dozens of eggs while it was being attacked. I thought why is the moth doing this? Is this to try and lay one last batch of eggs before death? Is this to give the offspring a chance at life because the mother is being eaten? Is it sacrificing the eggs so the mother can try and escape to live? Or is this because the moth appears to be convulsing in pain and the convulsion are making the eggs come out?

No matter what scenario it actually is I don’t feel comfortable potentially causing suffering to anything.

Although it might not be pain like we feel pain and suffering may not even be possible for insects they are unmistakenly reacting strongly to being bitin. If the insects I put in the outworld would just sit there and die it wouldn’t be so bad. But they all fight for their lives until they can’t move anymore. And I just can’t be responsible for that.

[Hunter36o]

It seems you got to see first hand why most of us refuse to give live food to our ants. Do not get me worng I love my ants, but a frozen cricket leg and some freshly cooked ham get the responses any pet owner could hope for (minus one Lasius Niger colony that I am struggling to feed protein too but I'm guna make a new topic for them as I am worried.)
Like I said beifly earlier, I personally would only feed live food to a species that has proven in both the wild and in captivity to prefer living food, like Mickey's black panthers. But with that I would make sure the food was not a high defensive treat so I could walk away. No interest in watching that. Also people why spiders!! What have they done to deserve a slow death they keep flies out of the house!

[Puncarlol]

Sorry cheeta but I think you missed his point.

For what I have read and watched on ants, yes some do prefer to hunt living food. AC's YouTube has a species on ants who's name I forgot but we have called the black panthers who love to hunt to the point they are always hunting the spring tails even when food has been provided and taken by the colony. It's kinda built into them, some will even do it for sport but unlike humans they will eat their sport so it is okay.

For these types of ants I would recommend based on the research I have done, is to do as follows.

With a small colony just after founding stages, you do not want them to get hurt to much so pre kill the food but literally just before u drop it in. Now I mean pick a living peace, crush it's head slightly but do not squeeze so it's completely flats and opened like we would other ants and let the still kicking insect get eaten.

For strong well established colonies, live food is fine once you give them in the right sizes. For example, a big colony make eat two adult dubia roaches, but as for live food it would be safer to use younger smaller roaches in batches of two or 3 in separate area of the outworld twice a day so the ants can easily overwhelm them.

For many it is crule to give live food, but when some species are built to be hunters and not scavengers although sad, we much tend to ALL their needs. Thankfully my ants like scavenging so I am lucky because I even hate pre killing their food but it is better then watching them suffer.

The ants you are mentioning are diacamma rugossa specie and yeah I completely agree with what you say. I currently have odontomachus and ectatomma species and because of the fact that they are semi-claustral species and live in hot climates in the wild the have that innate instinct of hubting their pray. Although I only have queens I have seen other colonies hunt successfully and without any drawbacks.