Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

Its interesting to see how different colonies react to different forage. In my ant room where all the colonies are in identical environmental conditions, all of the nests (around 100 just now) all take exactly the same leaves.Its only when they leave and go to other setups that they develop other preferences so I would say that anecdotal evidence supports the view that their leaf preference is based on the conditions present in the fungus chamber and the availability of suitable sized workers to cut or carry different material.

sorry I haven't updated in a while but my colony is cutting lots of leaves and they seem to be doing well!

Good news What foods are their favourites, and are you using anything from supermarkets ?

Their favourite foods are:
Rose leaves
Rose petals
Buddleia leaves
Raspberry leaves
Grapes
Almonds
Apples


I get all the leaves from my garden but the apples, almonds and grapes are from the supermarket.

I tried Buddleia today for the first time and they showed some interest, mainly with the flowers but not enough for them to really bother with sadly.

Sprouts are flavour of the month for mine followed by
Bramble
Apple
Almonds

and just now iv'e seen them cut a piece of Ivy, this would be ideal.

Yeah it would be great for the winter! I hadn't thought of trying Ivy, I will put some in but mine are fussy eaters!

Bitterlime wrote:Yeah it would be great for the winter! I hadn't thought of trying Ivy, I will put some in but mine are fussy eaters!

I found ivy to dry up very quickly so my Atta colony didn't cut it that much. Be interesting to hear how your Acromyrmex colony gets on.

After a day mine only cut two pieces from the Ivy, so it's not a winner.

I put some Ivy leaves in last night but unfortunately they haven't touched it! I will keep it in for a bit longer but I doubt they will take it!

There are many types of ivy, some is good, some is bad. Ivy are a bit like people, you get nice ones and bad asses!