ants in the incubator!!!! HEED HELP REALLY FAST!!!!!!!

[tmpshrty96]

i have an incubator with quail and chicken eggs in it there all rocking back and forth so there about ready to hatch and there are ants in the incubator!!!!!! what do i do??????? im worried that they will get in the cracks of the eggs when they start to hatch and bite the chicks

 

[Emzyyy]

OHHH I don't know I hope someone can help. Im pretty sure those ants will eat your chicks. You think putting some honey or syrup out by the incubator will attact them to that instead?

 

[tmpshrty96]

i dont kno. it might atract more to the incubator

 

[Quillgirl]

Put closed ant baits/traps outside the bater in the path of the ants (they should all be traveling on a scent path) so that they go to it and out of the bater, then move the bater. Ants need a scent path and if you break the path they will be confused and wont' be able to find their way home. Put the bater somewhere else harder to find.

 

[Akane]

Wipe off the ants outside and clean the table so they can't find where to go. The ones inside should leave soon and you can just keep wiping them off so they don't start the trail over. If there is a really obvious trail you could set something farther up the trail for them to eat so they stop there instead of going all the way to the bator. If they are going up table legs you can place something sticky there to stop them. Sounds like you need to work on getting rid of some ants around the house. Ants don't usually stay inside unless they've found food sources.

 

[tmpshrty96]

i dont have ant traps or ant spray. but i do have another incubator that is set it has some eggs in it that are in an automatic egg turner but im thinking about taking them out and of the egg turner and trying to go really fast and put the eggs that are rolling in there with them. will this work or could it make the rocking eggs not hatch because they get a lil cold while i take them out. the other incubator is in the same room though do you think they willl still get cold?

 

[Akane]

It's not the temperature that's the problem. Eggs can get quite cold even after incubating before they are at risk and they stay warm much longer than air. It takes awhile to chill the inside of an egg. The problem is humidity. You should have raised the humidity at least a day ago if they are rocking so that the membrane is soft enough for them to pip and that they don't dry out and stick to the shell. Opening the bator now risks drying the membrane out so they can't hatch. Also the other bator would have lower humidity if those eggs aren't ready to hatch and the humidity hasn't been increased yet. Now if you didn't do that then unless it's really dry there I suppose you could move them but you really need to get the humidity up so they don't have problems hatching. Would moving them solve the problem though? If ants are going to that bator why won't they just go to the other bator? I'd move the bator to a new location or switch the locations of the bators before I'd just move the eggs since that wouldn't require opening the bator and losing the humidity. Unless there's something in the bator like a rotten egg attracting the ants and then your solution would be to remove what's attracting them.

 

[Jenski]

Carefully pour a thin, unbroken ring of baby powder on the table around your incubator. This will definitely keep the ants out . . . just as long as you don't have kids/animals who will scatter it around.

Good luck!

 

[tmpshrty96]

the ants in the incubator are all gone. i sprayed clorox ande water on the place that the ants were coming from and carefuly sprayed it around the incubator and the ants that started coming out of the incubator i squished and i dont see any more in there

 

[Greenwood Chick]

What a relief! Be sure you let us know how the rest of the hatch goes!