Fire ants and chickens ???

[RIRfave]

Thanks Justinv! I spread a 50lb bag of dry molasses all over my 1 acre backyard - definitely controls fire ants! I used step 2 to get rid of the mounds. Fire ants were instantly destroyed. I have been battling these nasty little pests ever since I moved to Texas in 1984.
The dirt doctor developed an organic solution. I am so pleased with the results! Finally, I can enjoy walking in the yard without worrying about fire ants!

https://www.dirtdoctor.com/garden/Fire-Ant-Control-that-Works_vq2316.htm

 

[Kemical Fenix]

I have over 50 chickens and have never seen one of them eat an ant, and there are plenty of fire & big red harvester ants near the coops. I'm thinking about investing in an ant-eater lol. As others have said, gotta use some kind of poison that will kill the queens(several in a fire ant colony). DE is glorified dust that doesn't work for anything, including mites & lice.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

DE use to be mined in the state of Mississippi and Mississippi is covered in fire any mounds. How can DE kill fire ant colones but do so little to keep Mississippi fire ant free?

Save your backs ladies and gentlemen, just send your money to me.

 

[jimpug]

I certainly do not want my chickens bit by fire ants, and do not want to use any kind of chemicals or pesticides around my chickens.
When I see an ant mound, I boil a big pot of water, bring to the ant mound, use a shovel to slightly destroy the top of the mound, pour the boiling water into it immediately before the ants get away. This is much more effective than using ant baits as ants in my yard have probably developed immunity to the baits. Things to watch is: boiling water kills everything including your grass. If the mound is close to a tree, the boiling water will likely kill the roots of the tree too. Grass can grow back in no time. But you don't want to kill a tree.
Boiling water is the most organic way to kill fire ants or any ants, in my view.

 

[barred2rock]

I have a fire ant mound about 30 feet from the coop & run and dotted around the property. The ants have never bothered the chickens. The chickens peck the ants, but won't eat them. Now that the chickens are established the ants have burrowed under the run and have come up the other side to avoid the chickens. The chickens do eat the smaller black ants, haven't seen any of the giant black ants (big but seem harmless) near the girls.

 

[clhtjh]

Well.....
Today I was pulling back logs so the girls could eat the bugs that scurried out from under them.
Pebbles, my Dominique, ended up standing in a fire ant nest that happened to be under one. At first I thought she was fine with it, but within a minute she showed distress. They were biting/stinging her legs! I thought chicken skin was thick, but she clearly was in pain. She was dancing around trying to hold one leg up, while trying to itch the other leg. I haven't had a big problem with fire ants in my yard in a long time (I use a fertilizer sprayer to spray Blue Dawn to get rid of mosquitoes and it helps with ants too).
Now I need to find out how to treat their stings on a chicken. For me, I'd normally have to wait until the next day. That's when it normally blisters. Once I remove the puss from the blister, it starts to heal (unless it tries to get infected). This procedure would be impossible on a chicken...
Any ideas?

 

[trudyg]

My grandkids play in my yard, so getting rid of fire ants is a must. I use acephate powder--very poisonous and stinks. The lot of them go with me on daily 'ant patrol'. This helps them identify ant mounds (as different from a cow patty). Yes, it's a powerful poisonous chemical that I don't want to ingest, but these kids are so much more precious to me than my chickens. And, no, my chickens don't mess with fire ants. I live in Alabama, so we have lots of them and all year round.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Everything has an end and a beginning. If you will once rid your property of fire ants then your chickens MAY be able to keep future ant numbers in check.

Newly bred queen fire ants invariability search out a small piece of bare ground to begin her new colony. So a high stocking rate of chickens just may result in your backyard being conducive to the formation of new fire ant colonies. Then again a lot of chickens can eat a lot of fire ants.

Chickens that are the most vulnerable to fire ants are the hatchlings, especially if they are still wet.

I don't know how to manage fire ants for this purpose but they will eat the bejesus out of mites, especially red mites..

 

[Saaniya]

I would say fire ants & black ants and all species of ants eats the eggs of Coccidiosis parasite and if chick or chicken eat them ( they usually get crazy just to see ants) they'll get infected with cocci sadly like my pullet & in other hand Fire Ants are blood sucker they are no 1 killer ..and chickens feathers and skin seems pinkish and something that always attract fire ants to chickens and if one get in on chicken then surely tons of them will attack chickens that's life threatening because they eat the skin and get into the body I've seen people who lost their entire flock just becz of ants it is better to avoid that area or spread DE or Turmeric Powder To the place where ants are Turmeric powder uselly let them run away far but if there's their home maybe it'll hard so I suggest to avoid ant place ..

Gud luck

 

[Saaniya]

I hope someone else can chime in as to weather or not chickens will eat fire ants. I am a newbie to chickens and have 4 now. I would love it if they would eat the ants. Not sure what kind I have now but I don't like them. Their stings hurt.

Eating ants cause them.Coccidiosis very quickly because ants eat the eggs from.them soil so if they eat ant they'll get injected soon