Chemicals in run! What to do?!

[Folly's place]

Remember that 'half-life' means that half of it is gone in that time; half of that is gone in the same time; etc. So 3% is left after five half-lives; that's 400 to 1200 days to get to 3%. I use permethrin in the coop, and nothing outside. Beneficial insects, like bees and butterflies, are important too. Mary

 

[ourrune]

What ever you do, since letting them out of their run is not an option, be very careful about not putting too many chickens in that run. The basic rule is 10 sq ft of run per medium sized bird. Larger breeds need more space, smaller bantam breeds need less. Your run looks like it's only big enough for three, maybe 4 hens.

thats all we ever plan to have. This is just a small thing for us for fun mostly. They are more pets than anything else. We are only allowed to have hens and up to 4 in the city we live now. We have 3 standard pullets and 2 silkie chicks as of now, which at least one is bound to go because im pretty sure one out of my 3 standards is a roosters and we arent allowed to have them if we wanted. I did make sure i knew all that info at least! thanks

 

[ourrune]

Remember that 'half-life' means that half of it is gone in that time;  half of that is gone in the same time; etc.  So 3% is left after five half-lives;  that's 400 to 1200 days to get to 3%.  I use permethrin in the coop, and nothing outside.  Beneficial insects, like bees and butterflies, are important too.  Mary

i realized that after! Lol go figure. And i had the garden poultry dust that is permethrin on top of it i dont think that would have stopped our enormous problem but still id rather have the ants now than the chemicals. And we still have ants in the yard as it is, it didnt even kill them! Lol ive never used insecticides ever before this and wish i never had. At least they arent in the coop now. I got a headache just from accidentally breathing the stuff in i think! Thank you for explaining the half life also!

 

[Bryant Redhawk]

To be safe, do remove a minimum of 6" of the soil.

You have some options on what to do with that contaminated soil:
1) you can heat the dirt to 180-200 degrees for two hours, this will render the contaminate dead at which point you would be safe in returning that dirt to the run.
2) Simply put it where you will not be growing anything to eat ( like on a path that has a barrier cloth already in place).
3) take it to the dump (not the best choice since you will have to pay to leave it there).

If you happen to have a 55 gal drum "burn barrel" you have the beginnings of what it takes to use option #1.

When we find ants where we can't allow them to live, we use Club soda to get rid of them, we use one 2L bottle per mound, pour it down into the mound and around the mound and they are dead or dying. It is cheep, non polluting, safe for all other creatures. Works better than anything else we have ever used.