Do chickens eat ants?

[RamonaMom]

Chickens eat insects, right? Ants are insects. Why would they not eat ants that seem to have taken over their roosting area?! It's a small coop and I ran into a nest of ants while cleaning it out today! Ugh! I am allergic to fire ants and now waiting to make sure what bit me was NOT something I am allergic to...
Ramona

 

[nuthatched]

No, they're bitter and acidic.
They don't eat them

 

[Ecarroll]

Little ants (like sugar ants) I think are too small for them, but I’ve seen them gobble up larger carpenter ant size ones.

 

[Ecarroll]

No, they're bitter and acidic.
They don't eat them

Probably depends on the chicken and the ants, mine do, and we only have pretty harmless ants. They can’t be that terrible tasteing, some people eat them, I’ve heard they taste lemony

 

[WingItRanch]

My chickens completely avoid ants. Unfortunately we have fire ants and they are horribly painful. Can't imagine they taste good and they're also very small. They'll go to town on most other bugs.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Depends on the ants. My guess is fire ants don't taste good or they bite or whatnot. I've seen my chickens snack casually on other ants though.

 

[BoundlessLove]

Mine don’t, but we have black ants and fire ants.

 

[Apis mellifera]

When I'm splitting firewood, my flock has become conditioned to stand by and see what falls out. Carpenter ants and their larva are on the menu.

 

[Perris]

There are over 22,000 species of ants and they have a variety of different properties, which make each of them more or less edible to various predators (and presumably variably allergenic). So the obvious answer to your question

Why would they not eat ants that seem to have taken over their roosting area?!

is because the particular species of ant that has taken over is not one that they can or want to eat, so you will have to deal with it.

As others have said, chickens eat some ants. Fwiw, the lawn here used to have colonies of meadow ants but doesn't obviously now because my chickens eat them, and they feast periodically on the ants that live under the terrace, whenever the latter emerge to take flight.

 

[fluffycrow]

The chicks that are artificially brooded close to the house seem to eat a few ants here and there, but don’t seem to go out of their way to do so once they get to the coops. Like many have said, it seems like they enjoy certain species more than others; I imagine those closer to the house are tastier.

Even so, some species that have been already mentioned on this post as tasty (carpeter ants, for example), and can be readily found on the property, have never been touched by an adult; I guess the bother isn’t worth it