cinnamon...

[cyart]

Question - my chickens do not eat the ants that are in their coop. I try and smoosh the ants, but yet they still live! Someone told me cinnamon will deter the ants. But will it harm the chickens????

Or does someone have another suggestion?

Thanks!
Christine

 

[miss_jayne]

cornmeal. the ants eat it and it destroys them. the chickens wont be harmed by it.

cinnamon is a skin & eye irritant.

best and God Bless!

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Soapy water will kill them, but I don't think it will treat the area and deter them from coming back. I left a water hose running in a flower bed outside our back door a few weeks ago and it flooded a fire ant nest. My wife stepped out the back door and started hollering. The ants had swarmed up onto the back steps, up the side of the house, and were coming in the back door. A bazillion fire ants everywhere. I took some vinegar out there and poured it on the steps, but they happily swam around in it and seemed to enjoy it. I grabbed a bucket of soapy water and poured it on the steps and they immediately curled up and died. I threw soapy water on all the walls and poured it on the mound. They were gone in no time.

If you just want to spot treat you could try some in a spray bottle, but to get rid of them you need to find where they're coming from and treat the colony.

 

[hooligan]

Cinnamon oil will kill weeds, I know that for sure, not sure about the bugs tho!

 

[Emzyyy]

We used to put honey or maple syrup in cups and they try to eat it and get stuckk

 

[newchickenfamily]

Quote:
Thanks for the cornmeal tip!!! The ants are all over the chickens yard. I'll get out the box of cornmeal pronto!

 

[hooligan]

Does cornmeal really work? How does it kill them?

 

[Ladysonja]

I second the cornmeal suggestion...

We had an old burn pile right in front of where our coop is...

Although we cleaned up the burn pile and even purchased one of the high power magnets on a pole from Home Depot to find old pieces of metal and nails, it doesn't pickup the fire ants that seem to be still living there.

I put down some ant killer, but all they did was move... I'll give the cornmeal ago and see if that will do the trick...

Thanks cyart for posting the question and Thanks miss_jayne for the tip~

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
They eat it and then drink water and they swell up and explode. No not really, but that's the ol' farmer's version.

From what I've been able to glean from the internet, cornmeal has fungicidal properties that interferes with the ants' digestion process. They can't digest it for themselves nor can they digest it to be fed back to the colony. They gather it up anyways and then die from malnutrition.

 

[spook]

I use borax. Brush it around the edges of the coop, they track it to the nest and it kills them. If you do not put huge amounts, then it should not bother them, or sprinkle it around the outside edges and murder the ones you see inside. Good luck.