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.
How to keep pet food ant-free
How to Keep Ants Out of Cat Food
Here are some tips to prevent insects from infesting pet food around your home:
The combination of sun and steel will actually cook the water. Opt for a plastic or ceramic bowl instead. Next, you'll want to draw a circle, square, heart, or whatever shape you want around the bowl with chalk. Doing so will prevent ants from sniffing their way to your dog's water bowl.
7 Food Storage Techniques to Prevent House Ants
A messy method to prevent ants from reaching the food is to smear the outside of the food bowl with petroleum jelly. The ants have trouble walking up the slippery surface. You can also place this on the outside of the moat container as an extra line of defense.
Ants are attracted to any morsel or crumb of food that they can find, and even if your dog has eaten all their food, there may still be the smell of food or a few tasty morsels around. Make sure to clean your dog's bowl after every feeding, and clean around their feeding area, too, to create less attraction for ants.
Airtight containers Containers like these will keep ants out of food. They are made from glass and plastic and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. If you feel an ant can get into a certain type of food just store it in an airtight container and take care of that issue.
Sprinkle the dog food with a layer of corn starch. The corn starch is safe for the animal, but will prove deadly when ingested by the ants. Allow the corn starch to remain for one to two hours. Once the ants have ingested the corn starch and died, pick through the dog food and remove as many dead ants as possible.
According to The Honest Kitchen blog, “While hand washing with soap and hot water will get the bowls clean, the dishwasher takes it a step further. Most bacteria that collect on pet bowls need scalding hot water (140° F) to fully remove and kill it.”
The most effective ways include: Storing extra pet food in a lidded plastic container. Vacuuming the area around your pet's bowl daily to keep it free of crumbs. If your pet's food bowl is infested with ants, place the food and the ants in a plastic grocery bag and tie a tight knot at the bag's opening.
Ziploc Bags It is easy for ants to get inside bags of flour and sugar because they just do not stay sealed. Once you open a bag or flour or sugar, put the bag inside a Ziploc bag and seal it tightly.
Start putting food in airtight plastic containers or mason jars, as their materials are too thick for ants to chew through and their airtight design won't allow food odors to escape and attract pests in the first place.
Some essential oils such as tea tree oil, peppermint oil, or cinnamon oil. Cayenne pepper or black pepper. White vinegar. Lemon juice.
The scent of peppermint oil, lemon, and cinnamon will deter ants. Try spraying diluted oils around your kitchen, or sprinkle cinnamon where you've seen ants congregate.