Feeding eggs to colonies

[Stiger]

Hi I need some help. I tried coming up with a nice quick protein source for my ant colonies. They are still in tubes mind you. I put hard boiled eggs pieces in the tube. Would the eggs kill the ants or cause them to die. I’ve had several species of ant queens die and a few whole colonies die and I’m wondering if it’s because the eggs gave off a gas of some type or could it be something else. At this time I just saw what was happening and planning to go thru all the colonies tomorrow and one by one see if they are ok or not. Again this affected several species but some species that are the same weren’t affected at all.

[harvesterant]

I have not heard of eggs being toxic to ants, but the ants may not want to eat the eggs, which could result in rotting food that could kill the ants, but it could just happen by chance. Remember to change the ants' diet every so often, so that they do not get bored of it.

[Stiger]

Yea the eggs was a new thing I was trying I noticed the eggs turned to a red paste quickly and I constantly was cleaning them out. Could they have eaten the red paste like egg and die from that. I’ve been constantly keeping an eye on them and cleaning and whatnot just dropped the ball with the recent bad weather.

[joyjoy22]

You need to think of other food aside from eggs.

[harvesterant]

Eggs could rot, causing damage to your colonies. If your colonies do not eat eggs, don't give them eggs

[JoeHostile1]

Hi I need some help. I tried coming up with a nice quick protein source for my ant colonies. They are still in tubes mind you. I put hard boiled eggs pieces in the tube. Would the eggs kill the ants or cause them to die. I’ve had several species of ant queens die and a few whole colonies die and I’m wondering if it’s because the eggs gave off a gas of some type or could it be something else. At this time I just saw what was happening and planning to go thru all the colonies tomorrow and one by one see if they are ok or not. Again this affected several species but some species that are the same weren’t affected at all.

Go to a pet store or online and order a lot of crickets. When you get them home freeze all of them and put them in a container. Now you have ready to go ant food for months. Also you can keep fruit fly cultures and freeze the flies as well. Then you don’t have to mess around with human food too much which the ants may or may not like. Also try giving them seeds, a lot of species of ants will take seeds even if they’re not harvester ants and even if you don’t see it written anywhere that they like seeds.