I just read Cecil’s column on exploding birds and rice/alka-seltzer. I don’t know about birds, but if you put grits on a fire ant hill, the hill will die. Supposedly the ants take the grits to the queen, where she eats it, it swells in her stomach, and she dies. I have put grits on an ant hill, and it did die after several days. And these were Southern ants, so it wasn’t just the thought of grits that killed them!
Also, if you draw a line with chalk, the ant won’t cross it… why is that?
Did you cook the grits first? As far as chalk, my guess is that there’s a chemical in chalk that is detrimental to ants.
Cecil’s column can be found here.
Should you not throw rice at weddings because birds swallow it and explode? (02-May-1997)
Further to the riveting discussion on the subject of exploding wildlife, I feel I must share another possibility.
My dad is a mechanic and once told me of how he and his mates used to cause seagulls to explode by feeding them bread soaked in WD40 (a petroleum based solvent for those unfamiliar). Apparently the birds would swoop down, gulp down the bread but as they flew up again, at a certain height they would blow up!!
I guess it could have been something to do with altitude and pressure, or maybe a violent chemical reaction. Whatever, it must have been pretty funny!
Happy trials folks.
I liked messing with ants as a child (although I never worked up the courage to use a magnifying glass on them). I noticed that a line drawn in pretty much anything would stop an ant column until they walked around (or sometimes manageed to figure out to go over it) and locateed the path again on the other side.
Also spritzing an anthill with citronella was fun to wath.
Hm. Lot of spelling errors today.
… located …
… watch …
I’d like to see pictoral evidence of these supposedly exploding birds, etc. As has been discussed before on this board (YOU do the search; I and the search engine aren’t on speaking terms this month…), the idea of something swelling up and using up more space than the combined space already used by the rice AND the fluid is pretty difficult to ‘swallow’.
Someone on here did an experiment with swelling rice. Again, I can only suggest wrestling with the search engine. 
‘…them bread soaked in WD40’
That doesn’t sound like it has any scientific basis to it. WD40=water displacer formula #40.
quote:
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Someone on here did an experiment with swelling rice. Again, I can only suggest wrestling with the search engine.
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That was me. The total volume of water plus rice was the same both before soaking and after.
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord
[As far as I understand, the explosive effects that you speak of are all due to a carbonated product. For instance. I am told that rats cannot drink carbonated sodas. Or that if aLKA_Seltzer is fed to birds they will explode…NOT my FAULT