# Controlling fire ants



## supermom (Feb 24, 2009)

How do you get rid of fire ants in the pens and fields where your goats live? I'm concerned the kids will nibble the poison, but I don't know of anything else that really works.

Thanks.
Monica


----------



## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

Boric acid is supposed to be good but I don't know the particulars on how to use it.


----------



## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

I wouldn't use boric acid out where anyone might eat it. I use DE and except that you have to redo after rain it works here and can even feed it to animal so won't hurt any of them


----------



## Sheryl (Oct 27, 2007)

Yep DE here too. and believe it or not sometimes grits...uncooked work. also sometimes cornmeal. supposidly the eat the cornmeal and it expands...same with the grits. But I always use DE even if I do mix the other stuff with it. I have had more success with DE.

Sheryl


----------



## Rose (Oct 26, 2007)

Orthene Fire Ant powder. Stinks very bad. Kills fire ants very well.


----------



## mamatomany (Aug 7, 2008)

IMO nothing kills them...they just move out  If you treat your entire yeard with stuff they will go to the neighbors


----------



## Sheryl (Oct 27, 2007)

:rofl :rofl :rofl that is probably true. They don't like being distrubed or messed with, so if you do a lot of that treating the ant piles, they just move on. :rofl :rofl


BTW I have been told making a hole in the center of the mound and pouring boiling water kills them too.

Sheryl


----------



## deJardine (Apr 29, 2009)

I am so glad we don't have those little things here in California! My cousin in TX used to stick a fire cracker in a fire ant hill and "kabooey" Lol.

Does baking soda work? The DE is a great idea.


----------



## supermom (Feb 24, 2009)

I am pretty sure if we stuck some TNT in a fire ant mound, we'd just have fire ants spread out everywhere....sure wouldn't want that :nooo . We did consider a fire cracker in a hole in our chicken house the other day when we saw a snake go down there. Instead we flooded it and a 6 footer came out. ICK!

Monica


----------



## Theresa (Oct 26, 2007)

Bleach will kill them. You can pour it around the hill and then on the hill and it will kill them. I don't think that would hurt the goats unless they drank it.
Theresa


----------



## Madfarmer (Nov 18, 2008)

There's a product called something like "Ant-i-dote" (Google it) It's a parasite that burrows into their li'l heads & eats their brains, which I think is particularly charming! Since its a parasite, its going to take some time to work, but the upside is it won't harm anything else. Orange oil will send them packing, also.

Tom


----------



## Sheryl (Oct 27, 2007)

yep I forgot about the orange oil! just don't get it on anything with paint...it'll start peeling, and it will burn up plants ifyou get it on the leaves full strength. :rofl

Sheryl


----------



## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

We use one of the may one time baits all over the yards, around the barns and around the gardens once a year. With them taking diazinon off the market couple of years ago, nothing works as well as it did. By poisoning around the barn prekidding we don't have many ants in the barn.

I let them be as long as they are not where I frequent, and like all things, stinging nettle, bull nettle and fireants, it's something that bothers new people more, it's hard to remember to show everyone how to stay out of it. You don't stand in fresh sand...it's not sand it's a fireant mound. Right now mine is wasps and hornets, killing their new homes before they finish making them, which is always on my buck gate! Vicki


----------



## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

We have tried everything we have ever heard of to actually kill the mounds and it is true that most things just make them move to another location and in fact start more than one new location. The only thing that actually seems to work is the fire ant bait that has the hormone disrupter in it. Expensive but when looking around at pastures with a mound every square yard I am willing to pay. Trouble is this year it has been to wet to put it out. They will not eat it if it gets wet. grrrrrrr

Supposedly the USDA has released some parasitic wasps that target these ants but I have seen no sign of them yet. Sposed to be moving out from the release area at one mile radius per year. HURRY UP!!!
Lee


----------

