DEAR JOAN: I just heard from a friend on an eagle cam site to sprinkle ground oatmeal on ants to kill them.
He said that the oatmeal expands as the ants eat it and that kills them. Ever hear of this?
Roger Miller
Union City
DEAR ROGER: Yes, I have heard of this folk remedy.
The theory is that because the ants have such narrow digestive tracts that once they eat the oatmeal and take a sip of water, the oatmeal expands and boom, exploding ants.
Cool idea, but completely false.
For one, ants have a specialized way of eating. They take tiny bits of food and store them in their mouths in a special pouch called the infrabuccal pocket. The pocket acts sort of like a food strainer that prevents large particles from moving into the digestive system.
As it is held there for a time, any expansion would take place there, and the large particles would be expelled before making it into the ant’s digestive tract. No ant pops.
The ants, however, wouldn’t even attempt to eat oatmeal — or grits, which also are thought to have magical, ant-exploding properties. Instead, they would take the oatmeal back to their nest and feed it to the larvae, which digest the oatmeal with enzymes and produce a liquid goo that the adult ants eat. Ick.
Another theory is that you can spread cooked oatmeal over the entrance to the nest, where it will harden and entomb the ants inside. Dried oatmeal is like cement, but it is no problem for tunneling ants.
The belief that oatmeal is a good ant killer may have come from people seeing exterminators use oatmeal as a delivery system for arsenic or other toxin. The tainted oatmeal is taken into the nest where it kills from within.
But regular Quaker Oats? Thou would only be wasting thy time, not to mention thy oats.
DEAR JOAN: I have a cat that seeks out and eats spider webs. I’ve noticed over the years that he seems to do this to settle his tummy.
I have asked several vets up here in Maine and down home in Alabama, and none of them have ever heard of this behavior. They look at me as if I had two heads, and my cat, too. He’s the only cat who has owned me that does this. I guess it will remain a mystery unless a cat decides to talk.
D.W. Cooke
Chamberlain, Maine
DEAR D.W.: Your vets are leading sheltered lives because the online pet bulletin boards are filled with stories of cats eating spider webs. The experts say this behavior is either related to a nutritional issue or a psychological condition called pica, but personally, I just chalk it up to normal, abnormal cat behavior.
By all means, take your cat in for a checkup, concentrating on whether he has something going on that is affecting his nutritional uptake. If everything is OK, then he might have pica, a condition found in humans and animals alike that involves a compulsion for eating nonfood items.
In cats, it most often involves wool sucking, which can lead to wool eating, which can lead to medical problems. It’s supposed that wool sucking is related to a kitten being weaned too early.
Unless your cat is obsessively seeking out spider webs, I wouldn’t worry. There’s nothing in spider webs that is harmful. Perhaps he just likes the taste or maybe the texture.
Contact Joan Morris at jmorris@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow her at Twitter.com/askjoanmorris.
