Fire Ants

[dadof4]

Pour boiling water on the mounds. I also pour hot grease on them. It works well.

 

[EricShane]

well, we dont really have fire ants around here.. but, I would have just thought that the chickens would have ate them! lol.

 

[savannahmama]

Here's an article from OG about fire ants. One thing they suggest is orange oil extract.

http://organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-2-9-727,00.html

Let us know what works because I have them in my yard too and they're awful!

 

[TammyTX]

Tala wrote: ...so I would be very careful with ants and keeping your house's foundation wet!!!

You don't live in the blackland prairie of Texas do you?

If you don't keep your foundation at a fairly even moisture level around here you get cracks in your foundation that can run right through the roof.

This weekend I let took the end off the hose and let it run full force into a crack out in the yard for over 10 minutes and it didn't get close to filling up. I did manage to force 4 toads temporarily out of other cracks though!! I think we are going to have to get some sand and fill the cracks in, AFTER we relocate the toads.​

 

[Tala]

Quote:
You don't live in the blackland prairie of Texas do you?

If you don't keep your foundation at a fairly even moisture level around here you get cracks in your foundation that can run right through the roof.

Nope I live in Arkansas where it's always humid

My house is 60 years old, so I'm not worried about it suddenly falling down next year or anything. I AM slightly worried that the ants that killed the tree in the backyard might relocate to the house. I burned the really ant-infested parts of the tree, but I still feel slightly worried about it.

 

[StupidBird]

had fire ants bad in house for a few years. Was told later that is why we never had the termites everyone else in neighborhood had, fire ants eat all the termites they can.

Not sorry they are gone now. Waiting for chicks (11 weeks old) to learn to eat them all. Ant once got in the air conditioner switchbox and fried it all.
Try the organic spinosad products - approved for use on food crops. I only had to treat twice to rid fire ants out of the blueberries - has lasted 2 years now.

 

[babalubird]

Oh? Fire ants won't cross water? I beg to differ...

 

[jessupfamily]

Quote:
That's some of the craziest stuff I've seen in awhile!

 

[annek]

Lived in Texas for over 20 years. Only thing I found that kept fire ants down is AMDRO. It is a bait and works pretty well. Just sprinkle it around for a broadcast type effect or put directly on mounds if you can see them. Don't put it directly out where your chickens can peck at it. Use early in the morning when ants are foraging. they will bring it back to the nest and the queen, in a few days, the mound should die. It is expensive but goes a long way.

Also, water is no big deal for fire ants. I can't tell you how many times Lake Travis in Austin would flood and there would be mounds of fire ants floating by sometimes a foot across. You didn't want to go in flooded water between the fire ants and snakes!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I have offered every type of bird on this place a generous cash bonus plus central air conditioning installed in their coop IF ONLY they would eat up the fire ants on the property. So far, none of them, chickens, guineas, ducks or geese, have taken me up on the offer.

The thing that works best here is 5% Sevin dust sprinkled all over the mounds and 6" around them.