Pastured poultry and fire ants

[Freekin19]

How do I mitigate fire ant piles? I currently just move the shelters around the fire ants but next year when I build more shelters, that will be difficult since they will all be in line with each other. I’m assuming using ant poisoning is out of the question since my chickens eat the grass and forage. Thank you

 

[MysteryChicken]

How do I mitigate fire ant piles? I currently just move the shelters around the fire ants but next year when I build more shelters, that will be difficult since they will all be in line with each other. I’m assuming using ant poisoning is out of the question since my chickens eat the grass and forage. Thank you

Could try some permethrin dust to kill the ants. Permethrin is safe around poultry, & is used as a poultry insecticide.

 

[Penpal]

The chickens will eat the ants. Unfortunately, the ants will also try to eat the chickens. I'd use the dust.

Please add your location. For instance, the fire ants of Texas are way more destructive than the fire ants in Michigan.

 

[PatriciafromCO]

my experience four our land and the surrounding area, during several draught years. is when the land dies, other stuff move in . You could see more and more of the big ant mounds in the area. I had a mound pop up on my property at my barn. I put corn starch on the area (was told the ants were soft body creatures and anything that would absorb moisture would hurt them.) If the corn starch hadn't of worked I would of tried the D-earth stuff in hopes to cut their bodies up?) we started seeing ground goffers and parie dogs moving across the open areas here.

When the draught broke, trying to refurbish the soil spreading manuer, putting in earth worms and trying to reseed areas with pasture grass seemed to make a difference.

 

[WingItRanch]

You can certainly try Permethrin but I doubt it would work on fire ants. You need to kill the queen and the permethrin wouldn't do that.

Bait poison works best on fire ants to kill the entire mount but I would worry the little poison beads would be eaten by the chickens.

If you have a minimal amount of fire ant hills, you can try pouring boiling water on it. It would kill the grass but the ants do that anyway.

 

[dawg53]

Get a shovel and shovel a fire ant mound onto another fire ant mound. Stand back and watch them kill each other off. I doubt the queen gets involved though, too bad.

 

[Shadrach]

How do I mitigate fire ant piles? I currently just move the shelters around the fire ants but next year when I build more shelters, that will be difficult since they will all be in line with each other. I’m assuming using ant poisoning is out of the question since my chickens eat the grass and forage. Thank you

Petrol and a match should take care of them.
Fire used to be the prefered method of dealing with pests and parasites.

 

[dawg53]

I love dumping gas on fire ants and setting their butts on fire!

 

[Vicker]

I am in fire ant country and battle them just about year round.

This mixture is safe for gardens and animals. And it works.

Mix dawn and orange oil in water. I use 6T Dawn and 3T orange oil per gallon of water, but I've seen recipes using less of each. Drench the mound.

I prefer to use Amdro or Spectracide granules in most cases but avoid using it really close to where the chickens spend most of their time.

I've tried putting a shovelful of one colony on the other to make them kill each other. It's not super effective at eradication but is interesting to watch.

 

[Maggie723]

The chickens will eat the ants. Unfortunately, the ants will also try to eat the chickens. I'd use the dust.

Please add your location. For instance, the fire ants of Texas are way more destructive than the fire ants in Michigan.

Unfortunately, chickens don't eat fire ants, but they love other ants. My backyard is inundated with fire ants that just keep moving around. I am currently using DE, but will look at the chicken dust when I go to Tractor supply. I'm in FL where fire ants have taken over.