How the heck do I get rid of fire ants inside the chicken run?? 😱😱😱

[Jld13]

I’ve been battling against all different kinds of ants and I’m losing the fight, especially the fire ants!! I shovel the feed that falls almost daily and have recently changed to a pellet feed/new feeder which does help some. I see them all over the ground and don’t want my feather babies compromised. It’s so hot here in the desert that I do mist the run several times a day, so that gives them (ants) water I only gives treats now by hand and pick up any that they didn’t eat. What the heck can I do? I see the fire ant mounds starting inside the run versus outside. I’ve done gallons of vinegar and used diatomaceous earth without success. Any help is greatly appreciated!!

 

[Aapomp831]

You have to find the mound and kill it with pet safe fire ant dust.

Yes I have used this for years in the chicken run and outside of it where my dogs play. Never have had an issue.

 

[Aapomp831]

Ok thanks. I’ll go try that!

Boiling water will work temporarily / but it will not reach down as far as you need to go to kill the queen. Once her top workers start dying, she will start reproducing like crazy and within a week or so a new mound will appear close to the old one. So this may work temporarily, but you must kill the queen in order to kill the whole mound.

 

[TwoCrows]

We are inundated with fire ants, I have even lost quail to fire ants. I have tried every method, every chemical out there and nothing worked until I found this....

This WILL kill the entire mound. But use it very carefully, do NOT sprinkle it willy nilly, it stinks like a dead carcass and NOTHING kills the smell but months of time. So use it ONLY on the mound, don't go around the coop or it will gag you for months! Sprinkle it around and on the mound with a light powdering and give it a few days. Repeat if necessary.

 

[Ascholten]

I use the ortho fire ant killer. Brown Bottle with yellow lid.
The thing I have seen with pretty much all fireants and poisons.
The nest WILL scatter, and you WILL find another one probably 5 feet away from the original in a day or two.
Some nest have TENS of THOUSANDS of eggs in them. It's insane really, but with that,they WILL MOVE THEM. So look for nests popping up around the perimeter of the one you treated.

You will need to treat the original one again if it was a bigger one. Even though it may not show activity, get at those deep eggs, hiders. Treat the nests that pop up around it as soon as they do. The sooner you can start knocking them down the better to get rid of them.

From my experience, the ortho stinks a bit, sort of bone mealy, ass smell. The chickens tend to not want to have anything to do with it, so when I do spread it on smaller mounts too, and they are picking around the yard, when they come across treated mounds they leave them alone / avoid them. I also have NEVER seen a chicken go after fire ants either. I have seen them tear the hell out of a regular ant hill eat the ants and eggs. maybe I should give them an ANTacid but they tend to leave the fire ant mounds alone. So Id think using this stuff would be safe since they don't go and mess with it.

Fireants are nasty, they will quickly overwhelm, IMO, even if you have to lock the birds up for a week to nuke the ants via scorched earth methods, you really need to before they get too infested.

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

I've used high voltage before, aimed at moles originally but found out that when you put 26k into the ground, ants in the way tend to cook too

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

Another thing you can do which is kind of fun in a morbid way. If you have more than one mound. Take a shovel dig up one mound, as big a shovel full as you can get, walk over and pour it on top of the other ant mound. They will goto war and kill each other off. Now you have only a fraction of the ants left to have to worry about, saves on poison too that way.

Aaron

 

[Brooks_]

Pour boiling water on the mounds.

 

[TwoCrows]

Is it safe to use inside the run?

Its not something that you spread around to repel fire ants, you need to treat the mound only. This stuff is toxic. If you powder up a mound early morning when they become active, a day or so later the mound and queen should be dead.

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

I havent ever had fire ants inside the run, but my chickens are free-range and fire ant mounds regularly crop up on the grounds. I have treated with both amdro and ortho brands of fire ant killer, & both are effective. But, in the past i sprinkled granules on the mounds during daytime hours, & to my horror hens discovered and began to eat the granules. No hens died, so the product isnt Extemely toxic, but i dont know the result if i had not quickly noticed the feast & covered the mounds/granules up.

I now treat the mounds only at dusk after the chickens have gone to roost. I check the mounds in the morn before i let the chickens out, & almost always the ants have carried the granules underground overnight. If you treat your run at dusk, you will hopefully have the same results.