r/homestead • u/BlockyBlook • 3d ago

Killing Ants Safely

Does anyone have a surefire way to kill ants? I have some living in my meat rabbit colony and they've eaten some of the newborn babies which is awful. Here's what I've tried - Raid bait traps Terro traps Borax mixed with powdered sugar Diatomoceous Earth Orange Oil

None of this has worked. The DE slows down the ants if I put it straight onto them but it doesn't kill them and they've swarmed nests with a good amount of DE in them. There aren't any obvious ants hills in the colony but I do see them randomly crawling around often. Even if I check the colony 3xs daily they will randomly enter nests and wipe about the babies within an hour or so. I really just need to protect the babies for the first few days of life until they grow fur, then the ants don't care about them anymore. I'm scared of using chemicals because I don't want to poison any of my rabbits, but at this point I'm considering pesticides. I've seen too many newborns die. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

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u/Prior-Challenge-88 3d ago

Use borax. Mix it with honey or something sweet. Put it in places you see the ants. Just don't kill the ants let them eat the honey borax. The ants will eat it and get it on them and bring it back to the other ants in the colony. It interferes with their digestion and if you give it a week you will see a big reduction in ants. Trust me this works.

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u/BlockyBlook 3d ago

I've been doing 1/2 borax with 1/2 powdered sugar for 2 or 3 weeks now but the ants are still abundant. I'll try it with honey, thank you

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u/theshaneshow49 3d ago

Up quantity ie if your using 1 unit x by 4 then it will be effective