The Crimson Knights, my ever-growing fire ant colony, have gotten so ambitious they’re attempting escapes from their volcanic island home, so for Canadian Thanksgiving, I treated them to a dead emerald dove—only to discover they had a surprising plan of their own.

My massive and ravenous fire ant colony, named the Crimson Knights, have grown so big now that they’ve already begun attempting to escape their volcanic island paludarium ant farm setup (Volcania). So, to help keep the fire ants well fed and amply distracted, I decided to give them a dead emerald dove, a type of tropical pigeon, that I had been saving until the ant colony was ready to have it. With it being Canadian Thanksgiving soon, I felt now was the best time to give them the bird. But I couldn’t believe what secret plans the fire ants had up their sleeve the whole time.

I Fed a Pigeon To My Fire Ant Colony

Guys, don’t freak out! But in my freezer, I have a collection of corpses—corpses that I found or that were given to me by friends because, well, I’m a bit weird. But today, it is with great excitement that I choose this lucky package to unravel for this grand occasion.

It says “Do Not Open” in case someone might think it was food or something, which it certainly is, but not for humans. Let’s open it up, shall we?

Careful not to pierce a hole into its contents, I opened the package. Cheers, AC Family! And, behold! The contents of our special package is a dead bird.

Putting on a pair of gloves, let’s open it up so I can show you the awesome avian creature within. It’s still encrusted with ice crystals, but what you see here is a dead Emerald Dove, a type of tropical pigeon, which is native to my area. This young one was found somewhere near my home. I think it may have been attacked by another animal as it had a wound around its chest area. So sad, and such a beautiful bird, but so goes the circle of life.

It’s time to offer it up to Mother Nature, to proceed with its return to the Earth via the element of Fire… Ants.

Welcome to Volcania, the mighty volcanic island kingdom of the Crimson Knights, our now massive colony of red tropical fire ants who call these territories home.

The Crimson Knights, our beloved and yet powerful army of fire ants, whom we raised from just a single queen ant earlier this year, have grown to truly conquer these lands. They reside within the mountain, at a sectioned-off area at the back where the colony and their royal queen live in tunnels and chambers they’ve carved into the soils. Every time I peek into their nest, I am humbled and also fearful at just how mighty the Crimson Knights have grown.

In fact, they’re so big now that they’ve grown smarter over time, finding various weaknesses in the barrier that keeps them contained, and have discovered escape routes out of their setup off the island, which I simply cover with lethal diatomaceous chalk to instantly kill any ants trying to escape.

To keep their exploding population satiated, I now feed them entire chicken feet, which last mere days before being reduced to bones. Fire ants are definitely not an easy ant species to keep, but I have always been up for the challenge.

But one of the ways I do manage to keep fire ants under control, and to reduce their desires to break out of their setup, is to ensure the fire ants are not only well-fed but also receive new and different food types—food items they’ve never before tried. It’s kind of like captive fire ant enrichment, if you will. My reasoning is, if the ants are never bored and are properly distracted, they won’t think of escaping. And AC Family, that’s where our dead pigeon comes in.

I think I’ll be placing our freshly thawed pigeon cadaver here at this spot. The fire ants blanketed the surface expecting something to feed on, as they could smell my scent as I approached with our grand gift.

Oh, Crimson Knights, I come bearing an offering. Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, my beloved Crimson Knights. I’ve been dying to give you this gryphon of a bird for a long time, and you’re ready now.

I placed the dead pigeon onto the Volcanian surface. The ants began to climb the bird beast, but the body was still thawing, so I knew it would take a few moments before the swarm arrived. But guys, the events that happened next were just insane, and little did I know, I was in for a shocking discovery by the time the pigeon had been fully eaten.

This is the story of what happened when I gave my fire ant colony a dead pigeon. Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel.

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Guys, it seems like these feeding videos where I feed dead animals to my fire ants get more and more crazy over time. On this channel, we’ve fed a variety of creatures to fire ants, including tarantulas, mice, lizards, and chicken body parts, but this pigeon has to be the biggest carcass I’ve ever tried feeding. But guys, you won’t believe it, but nothing would prepare me for what I discovered about our Crimson Knights when I peeked into their nest when the pigeon was done. You guys won’t believe the shocking plot twist at the end of the video.

But, so far, everything looked super cool, and I was elated that our Crimson Knights had finally reached the stage where I could feed them an entire bird. I had so many questions: How would they deal with the feathers? Would they completely reduce the bird to bones? How long would it take the ants to finish the bird?

So, AC Family, tell me what you guys think: How long do you think it will take our Crimson Knights to finish this pigeon? Leave your guesses in the comments and, at the end of the video, come back to your comment and let us know if you were right.

One thing’s for sure, like I said, this pigeon was the biggest animal they’ve ever had in their lives, and I was excited to see how they would be processing it.

Swarms of ants initially preoccupied with chicken feet nearby had been alerted of the new dead pigeon that had fallen from the skies and were now streaming in like hot trails of lava down the volcanic landscape. Clouds of invisible pheromones were now being wafted into the air to inform nearby ants that lots and lots of help would be needed for this one.

This massive chunk of meat needed to be dealt with, protected, and claimed as Crimson Knight territory ASAP before some other animal might come by and steal it. I could only imagine how happy our Crimson Knights were at this time.

It seemed like the bird had now thawed to a warm enough temperature, and the ants could at least comfortably climb atop the bird to begin their work for what would be the biggest food excavation and deconstruction project of their lives. Once the bird was completely thawed out, I just couldn’t wait to see where the fire ants would be burrowing into the carcass first.

In time we would see, but little did I know, the fire ants had some secret plans already in the works, that I never would have expected.

Night Time

When night came, I checked up on the progress. The swarm had officially arrived, and the giant pigeon was the site of some hectic fire ant activity. Droves of Crimson Knights had now been recruited to the site. A mass of ants dealt with the bird’s feet. Many ants were still arriving on-site and also traveling back to the nest to call for more backup.

I just love how awesome these fire ant trails look when they form at feeding time, and the Crimson Knights surely loved their bird meat! I gasped at the sight of a ton of ants chewing away at what looked like the pigeon’s nostrils. Guess that offered an easy port into the meaty interior of the bird’s head. Check them out!

I also noticed ants already working at pulling feathers off the bird. I had a feeling these feathers weren’t quite edible. Bird feathers, nails, and beak are made of the same stuff, keratin, which isn’t edible for ants, so these parts would surely be left behind. I had a feeling there would be a big mess when these ants were through with the bird.

I already noticed that some ants had full social stomachs, which meant the ants were already feeding from the bird. In my experience, the fire ants deal with large prey items like this in two ways: The ants drink all possible fluids from the body and completely dry it out, while others rip chunks of meat off the carcass and take it back to the nest for consumption. Whatever the case, the operation would require some serious teamwork around the clock in order to consume the entire bird.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the groups of ants dealing with the different body parts of the bird. What is amazing to me is how the ants all seem to just know what to do, despite never ever having come in contact with a bird in their lives—I mean, other than chicken, but the chicken feet didn’t have feathers.

Every ant knew it had a purpose and just did what its natural instinctual wiring indicated it needed to do, whether it be chomping into some thick leathery feet or boring a hole into the bird’s exposed butt. The fire ants were determined to finish this huge animal no matter what, and even I was skeptical about whether or not the fire ants would be able to finish it in its entirety.

I was curious to see if the ants had begun working underneath the wing, so I lifted it up. Not many ants yet, but here, I could see the ants tearing into the open wound I was talking about earlier. I let go of the wing as fire ants started to climb my tweezers to attack me. They were not going to let me disturb them nor take this huge piece of food away. This was theirs now, and as I’ve said in the past, it’s no wonder Mother Nature had colored these ants a bright fiery red, because no animal in their right mind would go in and disturb this aggressive, stinging swarm, and any animal that did would learn really fast to never make the same mistake twice.

Dare me to touch it, guys? No way! I decided to come back the next day to check up on the progress.

Next Day

The next day, I was actually pretty impressed by the progress. The swarm had subsided a bit. As expected, feathers had been scattered everywhere as the ants continued to deal with the carcass. The ants had gotten down to pulling out the cottony down feathers of the bird, which was pretty cool to see. But guys, check out the skull! Wow! The ants had already pretty much reduced the head to just the beak and skull, having eaten all meat. Debris and sand grains had been placed on the remaining parts of the head to suck up moisture as the ants continued to mine into the bird’s head. Crazy!

I could see ants carrying pieces of flesh from holes they had carved out. There’s another hole they had excavated into the bird. Some holes were still being worked on by the larger majors. Here’s another just under some wing feathers. It looks like the ants had either given up on parts of the feet, or they had stripped all the flesh they could from it. Pigeon feet didn’t seem as meaty as chicken feet.

Now as gross as all this is, I always try to remind myself that this is science, that it’s a completely natural process, and simply ants falling right into their natural niche and purpose in this world, which is to help break down dead animals and return them to the soil. As sad as it is to see a young pigeon lose its life, on the flip side, look at how happy and joyous our ants are. We can’t possibly feel empathy for one creature and not feel that same love for another. The ants were returning to the nest with food, which would go on to nurture their queen and family members back home.

This is what happy ants look like—ants celebrating their glorious find, which would ensure the survival of their colony within the mountain. I just loved looking at their trails and noting how busy the ants were racing back and forth through hidden passageways and familiar routes they had established through the various caverns of Volcania.

And guys, I was surprised to discover this. Check this out: Looks like the fire ants even burrowed into parts of the rocks to establish tunnels going up the mountain through the inside! How neat! Seeing how the fire ants choose to lay out their trails is one of my favorite things ever!

It’s cool to catch some of the ants heading back to the nest with chunks of meat in their mandibles. It was also cool to see the different sizes of worker ants in our Crimson Knight’s army, from large majors to smaller minors. This variety of worker size is called polymorphism, and I just love it.

Seeing how far the fire ants had come in just their second day, I couldn’t wait to see the progress on Day 3, and this, AC Family, was where things started to get really gross.

Third Day

Day 3! The stench of rotten flesh filled the air around the decaying body. Amazingly, it looked like most of the bird’s main outer body feathers had been removed as well as the inner down feathers. I was in awe at how productive the ants were. Only the bird’s wing and tail feathers seemed intact. But the question was, how much of the meat was actually under there still?

I began to move away the feathers. A lot of the feathers fell off as I dug deep, but it was a bit hard to find any skin. Was there anything under all that fluff? I attempted to lift the wing and move some feathers aside, and yes, I did see some wet flesh under there. Ugh, so gross! I tried to blow away some feathers to try to clean up the body so I could actually see how much body was left under all that fluff but to no avail. I was making such a big mess!

I could see a stripped skull and some bones, but that was about it. I attempted to lift the bird over and see what I could see from the bottom. The bird did feel a bit brittle now. This was what I saw: A big mess of feathers and, ugh, the nastiest gelatinous blob of who knows what that was. It stank!

But the ants… they didn’t care. They walked around it, seemingly happier that I had helped them access a part of the meat they hadn’t gotten to yet. It seemed the ants had already thoroughly finished the upper half of the bird already. The back of the bird’s empty skull was dry as a stick now. And it seemed this lower gelatinous back portion somewhere above the bird’s tail was all the ants really had left to finish off.

But what was becoming evident to me was that the flies were now starting to come around, and where there are flies, there are soon maggots, and if there’s one thing I fear on this planet, it’s all disgusting worm-like creatures, including maggots.

My hope was the fire ants would completely finish off the remaining edible portions of this pigeon carcass over the next 24 hours, and we could call it a day, so I could get rid of this thing before team maggots came into play. Plus, the smell was truly getting bad!

Again, I knew this gross sight was all-natural and part of a very natural, inherently good process, and I couldn’t turn back now anyway, but I knew I had to wait for the ants to finish the deed. But the good thing was, I could also tell the end was near now, and that the ants would soon be done. But little did I know, guys, the next day, I would discover the fire ants’ major secret that had happened without me knowing.

The discovery would leave my jaw on the floor.

Fourth Day

Day 4. All done. The bird was as good as done now. No exposed wet flesh anymore. It was all dried now, but it reeked. No maggots yet. Official finish time was 4 days. Hope you got it right!

Ok, I’m getting rid of this thing now! Gone. Picking up the pile of bones, dried flesh, remains, and feathers, I realized that the bird really didn’t have much flesh on it at all, which makes sense, I guess, seeing as Mother Nature had designed these animals for flight, and having most of your volume being feathers would help a lot! Flighted birds are not meaty meals at all.

But, I knew that our Crimson Knights indeed had their fill. I estimated that the bird’s meat was about two and a half chicken feet in mass, which meant a lot of nutrition for our Crimson Knights.

So did you get it right? 4 days to finish the pigeon? Overall, I thought watching the whole process was still pretty cool and something I hadn’t seen before. I was curious how the ants would manage working around the feathers, and to my surprise, the ants handled them pretty well and were able to do their work fairly quickly and effectively, despite this being their very first time feasting on a pigeon’s body.

Having said that, I don’t think I’ll be feeding them a wild bird like this again, as there are much better, more meaty options, I think.

But if you enjoyed this episode and learned a few things, hope you can remember to hit the LIKE button as it really helps a lot to let YouTube know you enjoy these ant videos, and hit the subscribe button to join our ever-growing AC Family. We’re creeping towards 5 million now, which is amazing!

But guys, it was now time to check up on the Crimson Knights within their nest. I was curious to see the colony now stuffed with pigeon meat, and to see the droves of brood, especially the larvae all fattened up with pigeon meat. I removed the cover of their nest but wasn’t prepared to see what I saw within.

What? No ants! Empty chambers and tunnels. Where on Earth did they go? The colony had completely evacuated. How? Why? Where?

And then, it began to sink in… Ohhh… wait a sec… No way!

AC Family, I’ll see you at my official Meet & Greet in New Jersey, USA this Oct 22nd. Visit therchild.com for tickets. All attendees get a free AC ant-keeping ebook! See you there! Also, here’s a hidden video!