Fire Ants and Mini's

[TN Belle]

I am still in the process of creating my pasture I keep finding fire ant hills and we will poison them, the hill dies, but then they just pop up some where else. I KNOW I KNOW... you have to kill the queen... but I think it's impossible to get them gone. The area is about two acres and was cleared a few years ago, so the grass isn't lush yet but it is not bare dirt either. My mounds are noticeable, maybe a foot in width and about four inches high. There are some off of our property that are a foot tall easily. When we spread the poison on the mounds, we barely poke a hole in the top to wake them up and as they come pouring out, we sprinkle the poison on them to carry back inside. I am afraid I won't be able to do that when the horses get home due to the poison issue. My boarding barn doesn't have any at all and she thinks it is because of the foot traffic.

I will have two mini's out there and I am scared of the ants. Will the ants go away when they realize the new traffic around them? Will the mini's mess with the hill nests? If they were to step in one, have you heard any bad reactions from the mini's other than some swelling?

I am in south east TN, very near the Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee corner, close to the TN river.

 

[Katiean]

We have one fire ant hill in our pasture. I got real agressive with them last year and the year before. I would go out with spray and dround the hill. They would pop up in another spot and I went after them again. Then they went to the neighbors. This year they came back to the original hill. The only one that has been bitten to my knowledge is me. They leave the horses alone and the horses leave them alone. I think next year I am going to dig down into the hill (very fast) and put some poison and cover it up. I hope it works.

 

[user 488]

Florida has got to be the fire ant capitol of the World. Everywhere you look you will see a mound. You think you have killed one and it just pops up a few feet over. There are products that do effectively kill mounds. Someone posted here a while back about something he spreads over his entire pasture.

But to be honest in the almost 40 years I have spent down here I have never had a horse bothered by fire ants no matter how bad they were. Every now and then they will find a feed bucket and then you have to take action. Just be aware.

 

[Bunnylady]

I help out with our local fair, and every year, we have fire ants all over the fair grounds. We get a little rain, and the ants move up into everything, from the electrical boxes to the hay! They broadcast something on the grounds this year, but it wasn't very effective, either because of the weather or maybe they used the wrong product. My husband is a landscaper, he has a chemical that he broadcasts that is very effective, but it is rather expensive and I think you may need a licence to apply it. I'm also not sure that it's cleared for use in pastures.

Around here, my favorite weapon is plain hot water. It takes a fair amount of boiling water to drench a mound, but it leaves no harmful residue! Hot water also kills plants, so if that isn't an option, my second choice is permethrin. It's sold as a concentrate, to be diluted and sprayed on animals and their quarters, so I have no problem with it in the pasture. I just mix it up in a watering can, and soak the mound deeply. I may not get them all, but I stay after them, and my kids (two-footed and four-footed) can play out there without getting bitten.

 

[Marty]

Corn meal or grits........dump it in the mound

 

[uwharrie]

the only thing ( available to consumers) that will actually kill them is Amdro ( the granules) Do NOT disturb the mound when you apply it. Other remedies just make the ants move.

We have been sucessful in keeping the mounds off our property for a number of years, We patrol the pasture and yard on a weekly basis ( and more often when it rains)

fire ants go thru a winged stage and can travel up to 10 miles from thier original mound. They cannot be erradicated only controlled. And yes they can be harmful to horses, We had a Walking Horse mare who must have just stood on the mound. She had thousands of bites on a hind leg from the hoof to the flank and her hock was swollen the size of a football. Vet put her on antihystamines, banamine and antibiotic. She did recover quickly, but after that we made sure we kept the mounds under control

 

[Bunnylady]

the only thing ( available to consumers) that will actually kill them is Amdro ( the granules) Do NOT disturb the mound when you apply it. Other remedies just make the ants move.We have been sucessful in keeping the mounds off our property for a number of years, We patrol the pasture and yard on a weekly basis ( and more often when it rains)

fire ants go thru a winged stage and can travel up to 10 miles from thier original mound. They cannot be erradicated only controlled. And yes they can be harmful to horses, We had a Walking Horse mare who must have just stood on the mound. She had thousands of bites on a hind leg from the hoof to the flank and her hock was swollen the size of a football. Vet put her on antihystamines, banamine and antibiotic. She did recover quickly, but after that we made sure we kept the mounds under control

A couple of years ago, a fire ant colony moved into the stall with a pregnant mini mare at the fair. Although she didn't have a bad reaction, they made her miserable, and we weren't sure what we could put in the stall safely (since she was pregnant.) We wound up treating the stall and switching horses around.

I have two problems with baits (like Amdro.) Modern pesticides are designed to break down quickly, so as not to pollute groundwater, etc. Amdro becomes ineffective within a couple of days after it is applied. If applied during periods when the ants aren't very active (like now,) it does no good at all. Also, you can never tell what may be attracted to a bait. We have had dogs that tried to eat Amdro, sprinkled on the ground. I once had some chickens that escaped from their pen and poisoned themselves, eating Amdro that had been spread around mounds in the yard.

 

[uwharrie]

We are very careful to only apply it to active mounds. ( you are right it does no good this time of year as the ants are basically dormant) We apply it sparingly in the evening once the dogs and horses are up. If I think it is where they may get into the bait I put an expen around it until the bait is gone, usually by the next morning.

I dont like using poison if I can find any other alternatives, but when it comes to fire ants I want to be sure I control them ( and not simply run them to the neighbor's property. We treated one mound this fall and the next morning the ground was brown with dead ants The mound was small ( as it had just appeared) but the colony was huge.

I have two problems with baits (like Amdro.) Modern pesticides are designed to break down quickly, so as not to pollute groundwater, etc. Amdro becomes ineffective within a couple of days after it is applied. If applied during periods when the ants aren't very active (like now,) it does no good at all. Also, you can never tell what may be attracted to a bait. We have had dogs that tried to eat Amdro, sprinkled on the ground. I once had some chickens that escaped from their pen and poisoned themselves, eating Amdro that had been spread around mounds in the yard.

 

[faithfarm]

Extinguish Plus is the best product for killing fireants. It has the same ingredients as Amdro Pro (which is better than plain Amdro) and an IGR; so it has an initial kill but also sterilizes the workers and extra queens. If broadcast at 2# per acre in the spring or summer, it will eliminate fireants for up to 1 yr; or you could treat the individual mounds by sprinkling on top. This stuff really works, I treated my property summer 2007 and elimiinated 95% of my ants; they are starting to move back in so I will have to treat again in the late spring. You do need special equipment to broadcast it. I have been chasing fireants for years and this is the only product that actually works. You can buy it from Jeffers or some feed stores, it is not carried by Lowe's, Home Depot, or Walmart.

If you have fireants, they came from Mobile, AL where they were first introduced into the US and they spread out from here. They came in with a load of bananas.

Rick

 

[user 488]

Thank you Rick for posting. It was you I was referring to.

I also had some stuff that really did the job on single mounds. It was the most GOD awful smelling stuff ever. Trying to think of the name and if it pops into my head I will post it.

 

[faithfarm]

This subject comes up on ocassion and I hate to see people trying to battle these critters with home made remedies. They may work if you only have a few mounds to deal with, but if you live in the deep south, it's better to bring out the big guns. Orthene works good as a killer and smells awful, maybe that was the chemical you used. The only problem is that the workers that don't die can produce a queen and sometimes there are multiple queens, so it is better to add an IGR to sterile all the girls. I'm still waiting on a good population of Phorid Flies.

Rick

 

[TN Belle]

What are Phorid flies, little ant eaters? And what about those tiny wasps that eat flys? It sounds like we are just trading bugs

I am all for good bugs eating bad bugs

 

[Barbie]

I've used Borax with some success. Those blasted ants are pretty much invincible.

Barbie

 

[faithfarm]

Phorid flies are small flies that attack fireants only. They are not native but have been introduced to certain areas with some success. The fly lays an egg on a fireant and the egg develops in the head until the head falls off. Pretty neat end to a fireant in my book. The University of FL is doing studies on them and supply them to Co Ext Agents in the South East to release.