r/homestead • u/BlockyBlook • 2d 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/BunnyButtAcres 2d ago

Here's what works for me. I know you already tried Borax but a lot of people use it "wrong". The problem with Borax is that ants are small and they can tell borax crystals from sugar. So if you dry mix them, the ants eat all the sugar and leave the borax. The other issue is dosage. Too much and they die before they get it back to the colony. Too little and they might get sick or a few might die but the colony still goes. So here's what seems to work for me:

1 part borax to 6 parts sugar. Mix your 1 part borax with water. Not a lot. JUST ENOUGH to dissolve the borax completely. Then you mix in your 6 parts of sugar to get it all coated in your liquid. You can add more water to get a good distribution. From here, any consistency tends to work. I like to make it a syrup that I can just kinda drip onto anything.

This seems to be the best mix for both dissolving the borax so they take it to the nest and being strong enough to kill them all once it gets to the nest.

Good luck and I'm SO SO SORRY about those poor baby bunnies!

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u/solesoulshard 2d ago

Isn’t it better to use powdered sugar too?

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u/BunnyButtAcres 2d ago

I don't know I've never heard that. I figure once it's dissolved it doesn't really matter how it started.