Help! Urgent! Ants in the incubator! Updated...duckling not absorbing yolk...

[loopy12]

We have been struggling with ants in the house all spring. We live in a house of stone and I think they are in the walls. Nothing I try gets rid of them, they just reappear in a different room or disappear for 24 hours then come back in even greater numbers.

I have duck and goose eggs in lockdown (day 28). When I peeked in this morning I was horrified to see there were about 50 ants in there.

I can't open the incubator as we are locked down...and can't spray anything - anything that will kill the ants could block the egg pores, or hurt the chicks.

While the eggs are unpipped I'm not too worried, but I am very concerned that when they pip the ants will go straight to the pip trying to get to the yolk. What can I do

??????

 

[kjxoxo1]

I hope you get an answer....so sorry!! What kind of incubator do you have? What kind of ants are they? Fire ants??

 

[Apriljc]

I've heard the ants do not like cinnamon. Would it be worth opening to quickly sprinkle some and then mist with water?

 

[loopy12]

Its a hovabator. Can't really open it as it seems to take 24+ hours to get back up to humidity when I open it.

I suddenly realized that there are vent holes underneath too. That is where they are going in and out so I've raised it up so I can at least kill them one by one as they leave.
At the moment I'm trying to tempt them out with a bowl of sugar water and a sort of wick going up in through a vent hole.
I just don't get what they are feasting on in there - I scrubbed it with 10% bleach in water before use then hosed the whole thing down. Should be clean.

 

[loopy12]

Oh, I don't know what kind of ants they are - middle sized brown garden/house type. I am in Italy - don't know much about their ant varieties here. Clever ones. I've tried every ant killer on the market, and home remedies like sugar solution with boric acid. All it seems to have done is fuel a population explosion.

 

[loopy12]

Ugh. Disaster. I panicked - the ants were swarming everywhere so I decided to move the eggs to my other incubator which is a brinsea so gets up to temp and humidity quickly, and was already running with other eggs in it. I checked for pips all over the aircell ends then opened the hovabator. As I picked up the fourth egg I found a pip at the wrong end of the egg on the underside!

Disaster! I wrapped in a damp cloth and got the lid on quick, but I fear I've shrink wrapped one of my mallards - and I only had two. Please keep fingers crossed that I haven't shrink wrapped him. I don't know when he pipped and ducks can take 36 hours to hatch after pipping so don't know how long to leave it to know if he's in trouble.

 

[sumi]

Just keep the humidity high and if you are really concerned what you can do is dampen the membrane with a wet Q-tip. Just be careful round the duckling's nostrils, so you don't drown it. I hatched some Pekins awhile ago and a few of them took 3 days to hatch from pip! I had to assist one malpositioned duckling and I remember I started on the Saturday afternoon and it completed the hatch by itself early Tuesday morning after I got it to a point where it could wiggle out of the shell. It's a long, slow process. So sit on your hands and wait and watch the humidity.

 

[loopy12]

I'm going to just keep an eye on it for now, I don't want to jeopardise the other mallard egg which has pipped internally (I could hear the clicking when I moved it to the other incubator).
Feel like I totally messed up. I was in such a panic moving the eggs over quickly I also forgot to move the hygrometers with them, so just going to have to hope for the best all round.
Stupid ants!!!!!!!!

 

[sumi]

Ants have their uses, but not where there's chicks hatching! Just stay calm and keep the humidity up. You'll be all right

 

[loopy12]

He looked like he was trying to zip and couldn't - the pip hole was getting bigger but not going in a line, so I helped him. I got about a third of the shell off, no bleeding or anything, but I could see the yolk so I stopped. That was about 16 hours ago. He has since pulled his head out but I can just about see the yolk still, and it doesn't seem to have absorbed at all in that time.

Is it possible, because he pipped at the wrong end, that he twisted the connection to the yolk and that that is what is stopping the absorption?
Is there any hope for him?

I can't open the incubator as the other egg has pipped.