Eliminate Ants In Pet Food Bowl Naturally

by Texas Homesteader ~

Don’t you hate when ants invade your pet’s food bowl? But we found an easy fix. Check out this simple non-toxic Homestead Hack.

Ants In Pet Food Bowls

We adopted a mini-Schnauzer several years ago. You can read all our pet posts by clicking the button below:

This time of year we’re often dealing with ants coming into the house. And they always seem to find our dog’s pet food bowl.

We feed her small amounts twice each day. So there’s typically not food left in her bowl for any length of time. But sometimes she leaves her food in the bowl a little longer.

It’s then we’ll notice it’s attracted the attention of ants. Oh how we hate to have ants in the house. And Bailey REALLY hates them to be in her food dish!

Ants Coming Inside The House

I don’t know if y’all deal with ants like we do, but dang this time of year when it gets super dry, the ants will go marching out looking for food and water. Every now & then we find that they have invaded Bailey’s food dish!

When we adopted her years ago she had bladder stones that required an expensive surgery to rectify. Since then she’s been a happy & healthy member of our family.

But because of her bladder stones her diet is very rigid. She’s never given human food, only a special formula low-oxalate crunchy dog food and lots of fresh water to keep her system healthy.

How Much To Feed Our Mini-Schnauzer?

Knowing how common it is to overfeed pets (and to keep her healthy & fit), RancherMan researched to find out exactly how much food a dog her size and activity level should eat daily.

We give her half that amount in the morning and the other half in the evening.

So although food rarely stays in the bowl for more than a few minutes as she eats it, sometimes for whatever reason she doesn’t eat it all at one sitting.

That’s when ant problems can surface. If the ants find her bowl before she finishes the food in it… Ugh.

Keeping Ants Out Of A Dog Food Bowl

But thankfully there’s an easy, non-toxic way to keep the ants from her food. It simply involves making a water barrier around her food dish.

We have a larger dog bowl from years ago when we had a much larger dog. These days that big, heavy bowl is used for various other things around the Homestead.

But today we brought it in & cleaned it up as well as we could. This bowl is OLD so it’s pretty dingy even after it’s cleaned up, but it’s only temporary anyway.

We sat Bailey’s smaller dish inside it. Yea – it fits perfectly!

Then we poured water into the bigger bowl, surrounding Bailey’s smaller bowl with a water-filled & ant-free moat.

Take THAT, ants!

It’s a simple poison-free way to eliminate ants from invading your pet’s food bowl.

The ants aren’t able to cross the water to get to our dog’s food. So they grumble about their working conditions inside the house and then they all stomp back outside where they belong!

So long, pesky ants!

~TxH~

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6 thoughts on “Homestead Hack: Eliminating Ants In Pet Food Bowls”

Ken at

Thanks Tammy, I am going to try this!

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1. Texas Homesteader Post author at
  
  It works like a charm here Ken! ~TxH~
  
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Gail at

I’ve done this bc it works. Just make sure leftover bits don’t sit in bod for too long bc they get moldy

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1. Texas Homesteader Post author at
  
  Yeah, if she drops a small piece of food we have to fish it out, but the bowls are so close in size there’s not much water in there to start with. ~TxH~
  
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candace at

We don’t have too much trouble with outdoor ants around here but about this time of yr the big black ones, (inch or so long) do start appearing any time you move a potted plant or rock they are there.

My cousin and I did see some of the teeny black ants while we were in Venice. Where are ants on the food chain? Does anything we like feed on them?

What we do have that are NO FUN are yellow jackets!!! Nasty aggressive things but I do remind myself that they are predators of lots of things we don’t like. I just wish they would build their nests somewhere else than the eves of my old wood storage barn and my new wonder barn.

Did you see the info about Monsanto and the genetically hybrid corn that has been modified to kill corn borers (I think that’s what they were). When the bees gather nectar from the modified plant they have major die offs in the third year. OMG What next!!!

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1. Texas Homesteader Post author at
  
  I was out watering my oak tree in the back yard today (you know, ’cause we’re in a gripping drought… AGAIN) I noticed a small line of tiny ants marching up the tree. A hornet landed on the trunk and one-by-one plucked ’em off and ate them. So, I guess, there ya go! ~TxH~
  
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