Calling all southerners.....FIRE ANTS

[NC Chicken Gal]

I am having a problems with fire ants in and around my coop. I am afraid to use insecticide to get rid of them....what can I do?

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Guineas will eat them.

Any kind of chemical really doesn't work. They just move to another spot in the yard.

 

[DTchickens]

All chickens i've seen will eat them if a bed is stirred up, i've also heard you can feed them a lot of sugar- they take it to their queen, and after eating a lot of it they become sterile- can't multiply- dead colony.. But some people like ants, and im not sure if it works...

 

[Sugar Sand Farm]

I am having the same problem My poor toes are swollena nd itchy from them getting into my clogs. I have heard if you put cornmeal down they will eat it and explode. Havent tried t yet. I do use Orangeguard around my coops and in the house. It is a natural pest control and smells like oranges. It worked on ants inside the coop. The problem is you can only get it at Ace hardware. I know its online as well. Micki

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Forgot about the corn meal! It swells up and *boom*!

 

[EweSheep]

Are you guys for real feeding cornmeal to ants???? Not sure why but figured they can eat anything they can get their mouth on.

I, too, hated fire ants and learned a hard lesson when I first moved to Lafeyette LA and didn't listen to my mother warning me about those nasty pests. I was thinking they are like black ants from north which they do not bite. WRONG!!!

 

[jus1jack]

Boil some water pour it on the mounds. Repeat as needed till ants are gone...

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I'm in Palm Beach County, FL, and the fire ants here are ferocious!!! And I've offered every type of bird a generous cash bonus PLUS central AC in their coop if ONLY they would eat up all the fire ants. Sadly, none of them have taken me up on the offer, not the chickens, guineas, ducks or geese.

I've tried the DE, cornmeal, and all sorts of ant poisons on them with little success. So now I go cheap & easy and pour boiling water in & around each mound. It helps to at least eliminate that particular mound, even if it doesn't eradicate the entire population in the yard. So what, neither did the other poisons. It helps to try & stop them when they first begin the mound. I use a big pot full of water, sometimes first poking a little hole down into the center.

I've also had success using the same 5% Sevin Dust I use on the chickens. Just sprinkle some over & around the mound. I use this around & under the broody hens' nest boxes, to keep the ants from building mounds under them.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:
I second that about the the fire ants biting. As we speak, I have just come from outside from being attacked and biten by fire ants. I don't know how they crawled under my t-shirt but they did. At first, I thought a wasp was under my shirt, so I was trying to get it from under there but then the stings went to the side of my stomach and my back. I finally had to take off my shirt (i was behind the goat house so no one saw me) and brush what was no me off. I finally saw fire ants just drop to the group. The sting from their bite is soooooooo INTENSE. I still feel it. If anyone has a solution, I'm listening. Those little suckers have to be destroyed!!!

 

[Judy]

If you will gently scratch ammonia over the area for a minute or so, the sting will be gone. Don't break the skin. Has to be done within a couple of minutes. I keep bottles of ammonia in all the outbuildings. (Smell goes away in a few minutes, really.) Works on any sting I've tried it on.