FIRE ANTS!!! How do you get rid of them around chickens?

[mickey328]

The nice thing about DE (the food grade) is that it's perfectly safe for consumption by any critters, including us! It's not a poison; it kills physically rather than chemically. At the microscopic level, the grains are very, very sharp...like shards of glass. When bugs with a hard shell get it on them, it works its way into the joint areas and as they move it cuts tiny openings in their shell and as the moisture in them leaks out, they shrivel up and die. On other critters, it's totally harmless, but those little bugs who need that hard carapace, it's deadly. I regularly dust my coop and bedding to keep any pests down.

 

[mcgillagorilla]

The nice thing about DE (the food grade) is that it's perfectly safe for consumption by any critters, including us! It's not a poison; it kills physically rather than chemically. At the microscopic level, the grains are very, very sharp...like shards of glass. When bugs with a hard shell get it on them, it works its way into the joint areas and as they move it cuts tiny openings in their shell and as the moisture in them leaks out, they shrivel up and die. On other critters, it's totally harmless, but those little bugs who need that hard carapace, it's deadly. I regularly dust my coop and bedding to keep any pests down.

I use DE regularly as well in coop and in run and dusting piles but it has just rained so hard and these ants are in numbers I have not seen ever. As I said...the mounds are huge. I heard you can use splenda and it kills the ants but what about the chickens. I would never use that stuff for myself personally but if it gets rid of ants then ??? but I always need to worry about my babies out there.

 

[mickey328]

I don't blame you one bit! I'd never put anything out they can reach if I wasn't sure it wouldn't hurt them.

 

[HWilliams]

I live in central Florida and have chickens in my backyard. Since getting the birds, I've noticed the fire ants have quadrupled. I used to use ant killer but that's no longer a possibility as I let my chickens range feed. So, I tried pouring a pot of boiling water on a hill and it seems to have done the trick! Of course, you can't do this is the hill is close to yard plants as it can also kill the plant. But it seems to have worked well.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Its been raining a bit and now all these fire ant mounds are popping up where the chickens roam and inside coop area. I dont want to put down anything that will make the chickens sick and die. Never had a problem this bad before, what can be used to treat/kill ant colony and not hurt chickens. Diatomaceous earth does not seem to do much. Any help would be appreciated.

In order to start a new mound and tunnels, a bred fire ant queen needs a bare patch of ground. This is why wood mulch works so well at keeping fire ant mound numbers under control. Try to not overuse your chicken range because when you do and the chickens kill the grass and dethatch an area it just provides new places for fire ants to start mounds.

Fire ants do not, in fact they cannot eat solid food like corn meal. This old wives tail got started because oily corn meal is the food base that the fire ant poison is mixed with. The fire ants gather the poisoned corn meal and feed it to the ant larva. This kills the larva. You must first kill the larva because they regurgitate a portion of the food they are fed in a liquid form. The adult ants feed on this "ant milk" and this is were the adult fire ants get ALL their nourishment.

Killing the larva therefor results in the adult aunts, queen(s) included dying from starvation. It's too good of an end for them if you ask me. Someone on this forum reported on trying to kill fire ants by putting several hundred of them in a jar of DE and agitating the devil out of the DE for 30 minutes, the idea being to cut or whack the ants into tiny wee pieces with the flying DE. The poster reported that the only result seemed to be agitated fire ants. Anyway, fire ants live and dig in earth and I believe that they think of all earth, DE included like Walt Disney's Brer Rabbit in Song of the South viewed the briar patch. Have a good day and check out this link.
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/notes/Urban/ifa.htm

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

I was about to reply that ants can't eat solids, they feed it to their larvae, but you beat me to the punch! Can't seem to get rid of them, though..

In order to start a new mound and tunnels, a bred fire ant queen needs a bare patch of ground. This is why wood mulch works so well at keeping fire ant mound numbers under control. Try to not overuse your chicken range because when you do and the chickens kill the grass and dethatch an area it just provides new places for fire ants to start mounds.

Fire ants do not, in fact they cannot eat solid food like corn meal. This old wives tail got started because oily corn meal is the food base that the fire ant poison is mixed with. The fire ants gather the poisoned corn meal and feed it to the ant larva. This kills the larva. You must first kill the larva because they regurgitate a portion of the food they are fed in a liquid form. The adult ants feed on this "ant milk" and this is were the adult fire ants get ALL their nourishment.

Killing the larva therefor results in the adult aunts, queen(s) included dying from starvation. It's too good of an end for them if you ask me. Someone on this forum reported on trying to kill fire ants by putting several hundred of them in a jar of DE and agitating the devil out of the DE for 30 minutes, the idea being to cut or whack the ants into tiny wee pieces with the flying DE. The poster reported that the only result seemed to be agitated fire ants. Anyway, fire ants live and dig in earth and I believe that they think of all earth, DE included like Walt Disney's Brer Rabbit in Song of the South viewed the briar patch. Have a good day and check out this link.
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/notes/Urban/ifa.htm

 

[Chickeninthesun]

I have heard that pouring boiling water over the ants kills them and also liberal amounts of white vinegar……the good thing is that neither option will hurt the chickens?

 

[Certified Chicken Lover]

I have heard that pouring boiling water over the ants kills them and also liberal amounts of white vinegar……the good thing is that neither option will hurt the chickens?

This is what I do to kill fire ants in my chicken pen and it works great! Before I new about this I would try to use fire ant bait but my chickens somehow got into it and got sick So now I just use boiling water and it works wonders! Just be careful your chickens aren't too close when you use it!