Ant Got Into Chicks Feed Dish Wilk They Be Okay to Eat It

Pet food should always be stored in an air tight container, but sometimes it can get invaded by ants anyway. This guide will show you how to get ants out of pet food and keep them out. You can easily save your dog food and cat food without having to toss it in the trash!

There isn't much worse than going to feed your pets and discovering that their food has been invaded by ants...especially at 6 a.m. Yesterday, I awoke to that exact issue. I was half awake, pre-coffee, and went to fill our dog's food bowls, when I discovered hundreds of tiny little ants had made their way into the dog food bin. To say that I was livid would be a vast understatement since I had just filled the bin with a $55 bag of special grain free dog food. We have two Boston Terriers, and they have very sensitive stomachs, so we feed them grain free dog food that isn't full of fillers. My first thought was that we'd have to toss their dog food and buy new food. I fed them some chicken that we had in our refrigerator and waited until I could go to the pet store to buy more food, but decided I would call their vet first to see if there was a trick for saving the their dog food. I mean, surely this has happened to many people, right? Thankfully, our veterinarian had the perfect solution and we were able to save the expensive dog food instead of tossing it out! If you have other ant problems, check out my 2 Ingredient Ant Deterrent Spray to keep ants and other pests out of your home!

How to Remove Ants from Pet Food

Pour the ant infested pet food into a large bin. I used a bin that is long, but shallow.

2. Grab some corn starch...yep, the kind you use for cooking and such.

2. Sprinkle some corn starch onto your ant infested pet food.

3. Toss it all together. The corn starch helps to detach the ants from the food.

4. Once the you have coated the food in corn starch, it's time to get the ants out of the food. If there are a few ants, they won't hurt your pet if they eat them, but let's get out as many as possible. Grab a kitchen colander or strainer and a dry paint brush. Fill the strainer with the food and toss it while using the dry paint brush to remove any ants that are stuck on the food...their shouldn't be many. Most of them are probably at the bottom of the plastic bin. Do this in shifts until all of the dog food is clean. It's a bit tedious, but totally worth it! Pour each batch of clean dog food back in the dog food bin. Corn starch left on the pet food will not harm your pets.

Once the food is all clean, take the below precautions to ensure that your dog's food is ant free going forward.

How to Keep Ants Out of Pet Food

Place a line of petroleum jelly around the bottom edge of your dog or cat's food storage bin and around the bottom of your pet's food bowl to keep ants or any other pests from crawling into your pet's food. Ants will not cross the barrier.

vaseline on the bottom of a bowl to keep ants out of pet food

Another easy way to keep ants away from pet food is to dab surrounding areas with a little bit of peppermint oil. Peppermint essential oil in large amounts can be harmful to some pets, so just a dab on a nearby rug, curtain or a cotton ball that your pet can't get to will keep ants far away. Ants detest the smell of peppermint.