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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 806
 
Location: Arkansas | Right now as the green grass is beginning to come through, it looks like my place has the chicken pox from all of the fire ant mounds left over from last year. I can't begin to express how horrible they are. My kid couldn't play outside because of them biting them. I would go ride and they would be covering my horse's legs. We had to have our house professionally sprayed weekly. They are new to our area and no one seems to have an answer for them. Isn't there something out there that kills them? I want to stop them before they start. |
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 Expert
Posts: 3782
  
Location: Gainesville, TX | My husband always uses malt-o-meal. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1898
| We had a horrible problem with what we call fire ants, that aren't anything like the fire ants in the mid West. My ground looked like it was crawling away there was so many of the little boogers! There literally wasn't an inch of ground on my whole 10 acres that you couldn't find an ant and man do those little guys sting! We used Terro Ant dust. It helped a lot! |
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 Butter my Biscuits
Posts: 2948
Location: MI | When we lived in OK, they were so bad that our neighbors dog had puppies in her dog house and the fire ants killed everyone of the puppies. We bought ant stakes that you put in ground that kills the queen, and then put peppermint oil on each of the mounds every 2 weeks for 2 months. Seemed to do a great job. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 806
Location: Arkansas | Yes, they literally killed my yorkie last summer. :( My neighbors surrounding me do not have them. Only our place. They will be crawling up the side of my husband's shop and be so thick that it looks black. I know that seems unbelievable but its true. I was told not to put anything on the mounds because they would carry it away but to put it close to the mounds and they would carry it in. I am talking about 40 acres of ant mounds every 4 to 5 feet. Some go as high as 3 rungs up the fence. The mounds themselves are on average 1 1/2 to 2 feet across and about 1/2 foot high. They also have underground tunnels in my arena which has caused many stumbles and a few falls. We bought this place in the fall of '11 and the ants moved in the following winter coming in the house first and before we know it they have taken residence. |
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| I have heard of people mixing baking soda and powdered sugar together with water to make a paste and then putting it out for the ants to get and eat. However, I've never done that myself. "7dust" works good as a barrier. We sprinkle it around our feed bins so they don't come and raid the feed bins, but I don't think it kills them. It's just a repellent. |
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 Member
Posts: 33
Location: Florida | The only thing I found that works in my yard is the granules that you put in the spreader and cover the whole yard with. The ones that you just sprinkle on top just makes them pack up and move, or so it seems, lol. My 80yoa farmer neighbor that has a beautiful pasture with fat cows on it goes around on his golf cart and pours diesel gas on the mounds... Not sure how environmentalist would feel about that, lol, but it seems to do the trick. I always worry about putting stuff on the ground where my horse and goats graze... |
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 Hugs to You
Posts: 7551
Location: In The Land of Cotton | We have horrible fire ants too. One thing I had to do when the kids where little (because once they decided to sniff/taste the ant poison) was I would heat boiling water up in a pan. Then take the boiling water outside. Kick the ant pile, ants come out and burn them to death. That works close to the house. The other thing is gas/diesel, but that also kills the grass. Natural ways include old wives ways of putting grits on top of the ant pile. I have done that. Also, taking seltzer water, shaking it, kick the pile wait for ants and then pour on. Google natural methods to kill fire ants. |
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 I don't pay very good attention!
Posts: 6615
Location: The line between sanity & insanity in Oklahoma | My cousin mixes grits (not the instant) and sugar, half and half, and sprinkles it around, not on, the ant bed.. He said the ants take it to their nest along with the sugar and are unable to digest it and die.. He said that has worked for him well. We have not used it yet because we just learned about it after the ants went dormant.. We used the granules but it took a lot to cover the entire yard and they are costly..
Good luck and sorry to everyone that lost dogs and puppies.. So sad..
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  Sweet Tea
Posts: 3496
Location: Home of the World Famous "Silver Bullet" | orthene smells really bad. is a contact killer and works well, they will not build another next there once the ground is treated. we also use extinguish. its a bait. works well, but you must stay after them every 2 weeks. about a teaspoon on the mound. i always wake them up. |
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 Cyber World Challenged
Posts: 2526
Location: My Own Little World | Around here we us DE and that seems to work |
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Blessed 
Location: Here | horselover_jenn - 2014-03-21 1:14 PM The only thing I found that works in my yard is the granules that you put in the spreader and cover the whole yard with. The ones that you just sprinkle on top just makes them pack up and move, or so it seems, lol. My 80yoa farmer neighbor that has a beautiful pasture with fat cows on it goes around on his golf cart and pours diesel gas on the mounds... Not sure how environmentalist would feel about that, lol, but it seems to do the trick. I always worry about putting stuff on the ground where my horse and goats graze...
Yep that works!
And so does this
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Kill-Fire-Ants-and-Commit-Genocide/ |
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Expert
Posts: 1226
| Man I'm glad they haven't come to my area yet. They sound nasty. We have however have been having blister beetles that past few springs. Don't like them one bit |
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