about me

First of all welcome to my webshop!

I'm Rick, I design and make my own ant nests. About two years ago I fell in love with the antkeeping hobby;

It all started with a colleague of mine who told me a story about his daughter who kept ants as pets. I was amazed and to me it sounded more or less impossible! After I was done at work I drove home with antkeeping on my mind and after I arrived home I started researching the internet about the keeping of ants. I soon found out that keeping ants is a real serious hobby!

I quickly ordered my first 2 colonies that same day, messor barbarus and messor structor, I truly fell in love with this hobby which I have enjoyed every day since then. After a few months in the hobby I ordered my first camponotus species and many other colonies would follow.

Long story short,

I've had many colonies and now even own my dream species the Acromyrmex octospinosus which are more commonly known as leaf cutter ants. Because keeping ants requires specific housing which differs from species to species and can get expensive too, I started looking around again for better and more cost efficient solutions.

I started making my own ant nests, first it was with plaster and later on with ytong, this worked pretty well but the possibilities with these materials alone are limited.

This is why, a while ago, I purchased a professional 3D printer which gives me more or less limitless possibilities in therms of design and functionality. Every day at work I am brainstorming about what I can improve with the nests I design and make. It has to be perfect and strong, but not too expensive. After a few months of designing, testing, the feedback of many other ant keepers and testing some more, I can now finally say that I've made some great looking designs and above all functional designs.

I hope you enjoy ant keeping as much as I do and I hope you see something that can help you and your ants enjoy it even more.