Can ants wipe out a whole flock?

[Meg-in-MT]

We like mixing borax into honey and putting it lids under pieces of furniture and on counter tops where pets and kids can't get them. If you put it in a box with a few small holes, that will keep it away from the chickens but available for the ants.

For sugar ants, though, right? There are ants that aren't attracted to sugar, but meat/rot. Will both attack chickens? This kind of boggles my mind. Is it a warm climate problem?

 

[Tortoise]

The tortoise owners in the southern states have problems with fire ants attacking tortoises. A few smaller ones have been killed by them. I haven't ever heard of another kind being a problem with the tortoise people. That I can recall that is.
Besides the DE I had read before oat meal works on ants.

 

[Redhead Rae]

For sugar ants, though, right? There are ants that aren't attracted to sugar, but meat/rot. Will both attack chickens? This kind of boggles my mind. Is it a warm climate problem?

I think all ants will take sugar if they can get it. I'm sure you could blend up some meat and mix in borax too. The main idea is to have a carrier for the borax that the ants like.

 

[Mimi13]

I have ALWAYS dealt with ant problems. Not killing my birds, but invading every type of food source I have out, be it chicken, dog, cat or horse feed. Every single feed pan I have must be hung from above. They cannot be set directly on the ground. The Grandpa’s Feeder I bought is useless to me and is sitting in the box it shipped in.

This is what I use with 1000% satisfaction. I purchase it at TSC.

Two summers ago, hot and dry, I opened a bag of sweet feed for the horses. Only one hour later I noticed it was completely infested with ants. I was not gonna lose an entire 50# bag of feed so I thought I’d try something. I put the bag into my wheelbarrow and sprinkled the poultry dust in the wheelbarrow all around the bottom of the bag. Every ant that was in the bag of feed had to cross the powder in order to leave and every ant hoping to get in the bag had to cross the powder. That afternoon there was total ant carnage. The active ingredient in this poultry dust is Permethrin and it kills within minutes. It immediately targets the ant’s nervous system and kills it. I personally like to watch these dang ants begin going crazy. It is amazing. It works so quickly that any ant walking through it never made it farther than two inches up the side of the bag of horse feed. This stuff has been a godsend for me and is completely safe for your birds. Sprinkle it everywhere. Border everything making a solid perimeter around a feed dish. Sprinkle the litter/bedding in your coop and run. It doesn’t take much, just make sure there is no break in the perimeter around a pan of feed. Sprinkled loosely in the coop/run will do the job marvelously.

I cannot stand ants!

 

[Feathered_Texans]

I made sure to use the food grade kind and I did not put it anywhere that would directly harm the chickens. I mostly found places the ants hung out most or where their paths were. I put some under logs and the feeder , but the chickens could not get to it. It says something about causing the bugs to become very thirsty and I didn’t want my chickens to get dehydrated or dry skin or anything weird like that.
Thanks for the advice.

 

[AllynTal]

When I moved from New England to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I had my first run-in with fire ants. Hateful little creatures, they are. Every year there are deaths in the South from fire-ant stings -- people and livestock -- so yes, they can kill chickens. The American Academy of Allergy and Immunology actually has a fire ant subcommittee that tracks deaths caused by fire ant stings.

There are two types of fire ants, one from Uruguay and the other from Brazil. I don't know which ones we have, but they just look like little 'sugar ants' at least that's what we called them when I lived up north...little brown ants, but if you disturb their mound, you find out real quick why they're called 'fire ants.' :::shudders::::

When we find ant mounds on the property, my husband dribbles a little gasoline on the mound. It's just a couple of tablespoons, but apparently the fumes sink into the tunnels and kill the ants. The next day, the mound is dead.

I also keep a bottle of permethrin spray and spray the support posts under the coop before heavy rains because ants will try to get to high ground when the yard is soaked. I'll spray them in the coop, too, if I see them.

 

[Feathered_Texans]

An exterminator had come out a few years ago when the ants were bad and he said they were some kind of Argentine ant. They went away for a year or two but came back worse then ever. I now have a new property, but I’m paranoid the same issue could happen again since the new property is in the same area as the old one.

 

[Fishkeeper]

Yeah, they're an invasive species that's all over the US. I'm guessing you're in Texas, and they're everywhere. Nasty, horrible little things. Kill the nests off any way you can if/when you find them. It took us a few years, but we did manage to get rid of all the ants in our yard. Destroy every nest you find or poison the little demons, encourage your neighbors to do the same, and keep up with it, and you should be able to at least lower the population in the area.

 

[Tortoise]

Yeah, they're an invasive species that's all over the US. I'm guessing you're in Texas, and they're everywhere. Nasty, horrible little things. Kill the nests off any way you can if/when you find them. It took us a few years, but we did manage to get rid of all the ants in our yard. Destroy every nest you find or poison the little demons, encourage your neighbors to do the same, and keep up with it, and you should be able to at least lower the population in the area.

Actually they aren't all over the US, not the fire ants. We dont have them in the northern states. Yet anyway.

 

[AllynTal]

Actually they aren't all over the US, not the fire ants. We dont have them in the northern states. Yet anyway.

I concur with this. We never had fire ants up north. They are, at least for now, confined to the lower 13 states. I believe (though I can't find an authoritative source atm) that they can't survive the cold winters up north.