I Hate Ants!!!!!!

[magikchick]

I had a silke hen sitting on eggs. The other morning when I went out to the pen the hen was off the nest with a couple of chicks. I thought this was strange because she had quite a few more eggs in the nest and she is good about hatching out most of her eggs. When I check the nest it was full of ants! One of the eggs had pipped and when I picked it up ants poured out of it. I open the egg thinking the chick was dead and it peeped. I peeled the egg off of it killing ants as I went. I was able to keep the yoke sac intact and I wraped the chick up in a wet cloth and put it in my incubator with the other eggs that hadn't hatched yet. This moring it's still alive and peeping. Another chick has hatched also. So I'm hopeful that it will make it.

 

[Whispering Winds]

Me too. Ants are driving everyone crazy. This is the worst year we have ever had them, and thank goodness they seem to have thinned out and went their separate ways. Nothing works either!! They are even making hills in the alpaca poop areas, which I haven't seen before. That is terrible if they get into a hatching egg and bite that baby chick!!

 

[elmo]

Have you tried pouring full strength white vinegar on the ant hills? That's what I'm doing, and it's working very well. It's temporary, of course, but it's safe for chickens in the yard.

 

[4 luv of eggs]

OMG that's terrible! I'm relatively new to chickens so I never thought of ants as a predator. I hope the baby makes it and everything turns out fine. I think I'll go squish some ants.

 

[macmama]

I heard DE works well too... and it won't hurt the chickens if they eat it.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Same thing happened to one of my chicken's eggs. I HATE ANTS!!!!!!!!!

 

[craigle dude]

This must sound stupid and off topic but what's all the abbreviations mean

Back on topic Ant are horrible I used to get them all the time but then they just stopped

 

[Rachel'sFlock]

I'm not sure exactly how this would work in practical use, in the henhouse, but I know for a fact that ants won't cross a line of clove oil. If you can find where they are coming in, and sprinkle a line, they will go around.
I have no idea what clove oil's effect is on chooks, so please look into that before spraying it about, but knowing there are ways to disrupt the ant line may come in useful, somehow. Clove oil is not the only organic compound that acts in this way on ants.
Mostly just, FYI.

Bright Blessings

 

[TennesseeTruly]

We've even had a hard time with ants in the house this year. We didn't have this last year. It stinks.

I'm glad you rescued the eggs!! YAY!

Laurie

 

[pkw]

I hate them too!!!!!!! The place I used to live they would invade our entire house thick!! They was even all over our clothes hanging in the closet. We would have to pack up all our indoor pets and bomb the place to kill them off inside.

Where do you buy diamaceous (I don't know if that is spelled correct) earth that is safe for chickens?? I have several ant hills in the chicken yard that are quite big and I didn't know if they would the chicks or if the chicks would eat them? So far no ants in the chicken house and I hope it stays that way.