OMG, guys! I’m still recovering from what I’ve filmed
this week. It all just got so real, so fast!! OK so, I normally pre-kill my feeder insects
when feeding my pet ants, because I just feel it lessens the suffering of the feeder insects. But, in some cases I do feed live prey to
my pets, for instance when it’s necessary for the animals’ food to be alive and moving
in order to actually perceive them, or as I’ve done in the past, when the prey can
actually live out normal lives and be hunted by the predator, which is what happens in
nature. So, this week, I’ve attempted to create
a neat self-feeding, ethical system, which allowed the prey creatures, a colony of roaches
to live, feed, and breed normally, but also allow them to be gradually picked off and
hunted by my pet fire ant colony, that I knew needed to satisfy their hunting urges for
living prey. And so AC Family, just a warning, this episode
gets intense, raw, and gruesome, as we witness the instinctive hunting faculties of fire
ants at work, in an epic roach hunt! Welcome to the AntsCanada ant channel! Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and hit the
BELL icon! Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy! So if you like cockroaches like me, this video
will be pretty heart-wrenching, but if you’re part of the majority of the world that hates
roaches and would love to see a roach blood bath, then this video is for you! But guys, keep on watching until the end because
I’ll be needing your opinions on whether or not you think this setup I’m proposing
in this video, is truly an ethical option and an effective one for the overall well-being
of our ants, because I’m currently… torn. You’ll see exactly what I mean in a bit. So if you’re new, this here is the City
of Ashes, our ever growing fire ant farm metropolis. Within it lives the Phoenix Empire, a young
fire ant colony we watched grow from just a single queen fire ant. But I need to show you this part of town,
Hell’s Kitchen, where the fire ants get their food. Now you guys named this feeding outworld “Hell’s
Kitchen”, and well, despite it originally starting out as a gorgeous paradise, it has
truly been transformed now into a fire ant hell. The fire ants completely carpet the remodelled
and relandscaped terrain, and watching them dance upon the ground and carcasses from past
meals like this, intimidates me greatly. Look at them! Such a scary sight! Each of these ants are fully equipped with
stingers that can immediately paralyze any creature their size, and cause an intense
hot pain for an unsuspecting human hand like mine! Now way am I sticking my hand into here, as
I’ve been there done that! So you might be wondering what this is. Well, it’s some sweet jelly I’ve placed
into Hell’s Kitchen as a diversion, so I could lure the fire ants out of their sugar
test tube which they had completely finished, and needed to be replaced. After I did, the fire ants came rushing in
like crazy to drink from their new sugar source. Food is basically their #1 priority all day
every day… always! But let me ask you something. If you were a small insect and were dropped
into Hell’s Kitchen here, where would you hide? Let’s say you were quick on your feet. Would you say it would be possible to survive,
eat, breed and live normally here despite the fire ants roaming the lands? This is what I asked myself as I thought of
how I could possibly allow my fire ants to hunt as they would in the wild, but still
give the prey creatures a surviving chance to live normally. I’m sure you guys thought what I was thinking:
not possible, right?! Well, that’s exactly why I invented the
City of Ashes’ newest installation, which I’m going to show you now. AC Family, behold, the Shelfordella Temple
Grounds, a zen garden of soft coco fibrous pastures, leaf litter to play in, and the
highlight, a towering temple at its center, perfect for relaxation and peace if you were,
you guessed it, a cockroach. A colony of cockroach children will be moving
in here, and I’ve got a peace offering of fruit, vegetables, and fish food waiting for
them to eat. I’ll get more into how Shelfordella works,
but first let’s move in our cockroach children now. They came to us on egg carton delivered to
me by a gracious someone in my city who actually was able to deliver them to me, despite my
city’s strict lock down. There’s quite a lot of them, so I’ll just
place them all in, and then I’ll carefully shake them off each egg carton piece. And there we go. Masses of cockroach children were now within
the temple grounds. There were a lot of them! As soon as they were placed onto the grounds
they all kissed the ground, most likely due to the moisture they were drinking from the
coco fiber. These poor roach children must be so thirsty. So these roaches are hatchling Turkestan roaches,
scientifically known as Blatta laterallis or Shelfordella lateralis in some classifications,
hence their temple name. Speaking of which, look guys! The children have discovered the temple and
were already enjoying its cool, shadowy promises of protection. I loved watching them entering and exiting
the temple openings, and even enjoying the upper floors, as they peeked happily outside
the little windows. Some roaches were also having bites from our
peace offering. Now before we go on, guys, what should we
name this new colony of roaches? Leave your name suggestions in the comments,
and I’ll choose my top 5 favourite for us to vote on in a future video? Overall, I could tell the roaches were indeed
enjoying the lands, and treating it like a safe haven, where they could live, eat, play,
and go about their happy lives as normal, which was my goal, because what I’m about
to show you next is how Shelfordella fits in to the City of Ashes. Shelfordella like Hell’s Kitchen made from
an AC Outworld from AntsCanada.com, and so it has two unsuspecting holes, which are currently
plugged, but my plan is for both holes to be connected to tubes which run up to another
AC Outworld situated on top of Hell’s Kitchen. So my idea is that some of the roaches would
wander into the tubes, climb up and fall into Hell’s Kitchen, and because of the barrier
above Hell’s Kitchen, the fire ants cannot access these upper holes and enter the roach
safe haven that is Shelfordella. The roaches aren’t very good at climbing
smooth surfaces so once they get to these holes, they’ll easily fall into Hell’s
Kitchen, where the Phoenix Empire could then hunt them down. I wasn’t sure if this would work, but it
was now time to try! Unplugging the first hole and connecting the
tube, and doing the same with the second hole. Done! AC Family, it was time to watch, but I wasn’t
prepared for the scene I was about to see! The roaches were shy to enter the tube at
fist, but soon one bold roach decided to rush up the tube. My heart began to race. Emerging from the other end, it looked over
the edge. I held my breath! Soon, it slipped and was hanging on the edge. Ahhh! I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch anymore
but decided to keep filming… Oh! In it went! Where was it? There! I caught it running across some moss evading
surrounding fire ants. The suspense killed me, as I watched it hide
among some moss and then dart away once it was discovered. It raced all around Hell’s Kitchen, zigzagging
its way through the masses of fire ants that crawled all around it. I was quite surprised to see how quick it
was on its feet as it effectively avoided running into surrounding fire ants, who were
by now aware of the roach’s presence. There were times it came so close to being
captured, but always seemed to avoid the ants. I found the roach seemed safest around the
edges. For a moment, I began to wonder if the fire
ants would ever end up catching the roach. Maybe, these roaches were just way too fast
for the fire ants. There were even moments when it could rest
to clean itself until it was discovered again at which point it would run away. It was kinda like catching a fly. It was much too fast and could even jump out
of sight! I felt the fire ants kinda didn’t stand
a chance to the roach’s speed, that was until more roach children began to come through
the tubes. Someone must have convinced a gang of roaches
to come wandering into the tubes because they were coming in groups now. Little by little they all began to fall in. Some were lucky and decided to crawl back
the other way, but most had fallen into Hell’s Kitchen. Looking into Hell’s Kitchen, I saw that
several of the roaches had been caught and were now being feasted upon by the ants. Once the ants had seized a roach there was
simply no chance of survival, as one sting would be enough to neuro-paralyze the roach. It was a little disturbing to see, more so
as I caught roaches running for their lives around the lands, with fire ants all no pun
intended, hot on their tails. Many roaches showed enormous agility at avoiding
the fire ants. But I knew it was only a matter of time before
they would be caught and killed on the spot. The whole Phoenix Empire had been notified
by now of the roaches that seemed to be raining from the skies and I could see droves of ants
were dispatched from the mothernest to join the hunt. As hard as it all was to watch, the real intensity
was just about to begin, as more and more roaches made their way up the tubes and fell
in large groups into Hell’s Kitchen below. I watched in horror, as roaches and ants could
be seen racing everywhere in a massive life and death game of tag, and the fire ants were
it! It seemed that some roaches had nowhere to
go, as fire ants turned up at every corner! I sat wide-eyed and humbled as the fire ants
masterfully caught roaches and killed them with a single sting. Nature is truly metal. It took seconds for a sting to immobilize
the roaches. As more and more roaches fell in, the fire
ants got more and more ferocious, picking off every roach they could catch! The sight was a total roach blood bath! Tonnes of roaches had been killed now, and
once they were dead, they were each carried away, taken through the tubes and back to
the nest, one by one for further consumption. The roaches that had it the worst were the
ones who had the misfortune of falling into the jelly, as the fire ants had a much easier
time seizing them to deliver the lethal stings, after which they could carry them into the
depths of their nest. As more and more roach babies continued to
fall in, I began to notice that Hell’s Kitchen had truly turned into a Hell for roaches. It was hard to stomach, but I knew and kept
having to remind myself that this was a natural process, and one that would feed and nourish
our beloved Phoenix Empire, whose food demands were growing by the day. The next day, the roaches within Shelfordella
were all sleeping within the temple. I’m sure there were tonnes of roaches in
there. It didn’t seem the roaches were coming through
the tube as much anymore. Peeking into the nest, I couldn’t see any
roaches stashed away anywhere, but two things surprised me. One, it seemed to me the amount or size of
the brood had noticeably increased overnight! Well that was quick! Also, the fire ants had built their nest upward,
almost to the top of the Fire Fortress. I bet they were keeping all those dead roaches
somewhere in there, if they hadn’t all been eaten by now! So, guys, what do you think of this setup? First off, do you think this system of feeding
is sustainable? I know these roaches breed easily, and if
they continue to breed in here perhaps we have a solution to a self-feeding system,
where the roaches could live out normal lives within Shelfordella, while also giving our
fire ants a chance to hunt for food. Shelfordella also makes a good gut-loading
chamber for the roaches so they’re full of nutrients before being fed to the fire
ants. But my bigger question is: Do you feel this
Shelfordella installment is ethical? Is this the best way we can feed the ants
roaches where both parties can benefit, i.e. the fire ants get to hunt, and the roaches
generally get to live out normal lives when not traveling through the tubes of death? I’m not so sure at the moment. So AC Family, this is where I need your help. Please take a quick moment to leave your VOTE
here, to let me know if you think Shelfordella should remain a permanent installment within
the City of Ashes, or if this should just be a one time thing that you think was good
enrichment for the Phoenix Empire for now but needs to be removed, because it either
isn’t sustainable, beneficial, and/or ethical. Thank you, AC Council for your input! If you guys end up liking the self-feeding
concept of Shelfordella, and it proves to be effective for our Phoenix Empire, perhaps
I can try something similar to feed our colony of sapphire tarantulas. Anyway, whether we decide to keep Shelfordella
or not, one thing’s for sure: as we’ve seen on this channel before, nature isn’t
always pretty, pristine, and beautiful. Sometimes, it’s ugly, chaotic, and scary. Would you guys agree with this? Or maybe that contrast of what feels good
and what feels bad when we’re watching nature unfold before us is us not appreciating nature
for what it really is. Some might argue that in nature, there is
no good nor bad: life, death, and everything in between, it’s all just intrinsically
good. I mean, yes some baby roaches were killed,
but in doing so the fire ants were able to put their natural hunting faculties to work
and nourish their growing colony in a way nature had designed for them. When I look at it this way, I somehow can
look beyond my human lens often clouded by human emotion bias, and more greatly appreciate
that the natural world is perfect, balanced, fair, and always flowing in the direction
of the greater good of all. Thank you guys for watching, and supporting
the ants. It’s ant love forever! AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode. Is it bad that I feel guilty or is Shelfordella
an effective way for both feeder roaches and ants to benefit in the long run? Let me know, and I’ll definitely value your
feedback. So much more is ahead for the Phoenix Empire
and other creatures of the ant room, so if you haven’t yet, do SMASH that SUBSCRIBE
button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL so you get notified at every upload. Also don’t forget to hit the LIKE button
every single time including now. It would really mean a lot to me, guys. Thank you! AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie
for you here, if you would like to watch extended play, uncut footage of the Phoenix Empire
roach hunt. It’s intense stuff! And guys, did you know that it’s anting
season in the Northern Hemisphere, and you don’t even need to leave your home to start
an ant colony?! You can catch pregnant queen ants from the
safety of your own backyard, balcony, or open window starting this month! Be sure to visit AntsCanada.com for all your
ant keeping and collecting gear shipped to you in a special package from our ant-loving
facility in the USA, so you can get the most out of your ant keeping experience. We ship worldwide and also offer full email
support if you need our help! We also have a helpful forum and ant colony
trading marketplace on the site. Visit AntsCanada.com today. And now it’s time for the AC Question of
the Week. Last week, we asked: What are supermajors for? Congratulations to Ryan Suleski who answered: Supermajors help defend the colony and break
apart tough spots in their food. Congratulations Ryan, you just won a free
Ultimate Ant Keeping handbook from our shop! In this week’s AC Question of the Week we
ask: Why was the temple called Shelfordella? Leave your answer in the comments section
and you could also win a free e-book handbook from our shop! Hope you could subscribe to the channel as
we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST. Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and
SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video, to help us keep making more. It’s ant love forever!
its nice that someone posts the links here because i never get notifications