# All Out Fire Ant Assault



## Texas Turtle Girl (May 2, 2014)

*Growing up in Texas even as a kid I was trying to kill fire ants. I won't confess some of the things we tried, I could still get in trouble for them. I have seen fire ants swarm, kill and clean down to perfectly clean skeletons of many animals. I hate them most for taking away the horned toads that were plentiful when I was a kid. I have had box turtles since I was a kid too. I love them, they are such a peaceful animal. I am quite knowledgeable about their behavior from over 50 years of observation and interaction with them. FIRE ANTS can KILL!! This time of year makes this subject is a must. My successful method is as follows:*
*1. I feed my box turtles inside. No food, nothing to attract ants. This is the only sure fire solution for eliminating anything to attract ants.*
*2. I do get fire ant beds occasionally outside the enclosure next to the wood fence or in the rocks surrounding the enclosure. I immediately remove the girls to the house. I get my ORTHO Fire Ant KILLER, it is a powder. Poke holes in the bed, sir them up and make those damn ants mad then sprinkle the Ortho on and around the bed. I really get into it and use too much. The queen dies and the next morning the bed is DEAD. YES!*
*3. Now I have to be sure that there is no poison in the enclosure. I take the water hose set on the heavy stream and spray down the bed sending the mound and poison away and away from the enclosure. I do that a long time and I spray down the enclosure. I also set the sprinkler on the enclosure over night.*
*4. I treat my whole yard with Ortho Bug Be Gone spring and summer. This keeps fire ants out or at least a rarity as well as kills fleas and garden pests. The enclosure is planted with herbs, strawberries and their own tomato plant. They really like thyme. The strawberry plants are apparently as tasty as the berries. I quickly pick up and hose down any remnants left behind. They pick before anything gets ripe, and, yes they climb the tomato plant, so I haven't had ant problems.*
*While the girls are in the house they get a spa treatment, eat very well and get treats they don't regularly get. They are happy to return to their enclosure. Baker and Miss Nubin Hill inspect the place and Rose (the teenager) takes off to her favorite spot under the boston fern. After any changes have been noted the big girls head for the turtle house. And my All Out Fire Ant Assault Mission is a success and complete and I feel great. Killing fire ants cures depression and any thing that ails you.YES! Hope I helped*


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## Elohi (May 2, 2014)

I have had my yard treat every other month for 2 years and have no fire ants in the yard but noticed a traval path through the corner of the backyard the other day. It has since disappears, no ants in sight but that makes me thing I need to treat the perimeter to keep them out since our yard treatments end this month or next month. We used to have a scorpion, fireant, earwig problem because our house was a new build and the builder disturbed the woods. Thankfully a 2 yr contract with a company who uses organic pest control methods, has managed the pests well with every other month treatments. 


Elohi(Earth)


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## Texas Turtle Girl (May 2, 2014)

Elohi said:


> I have had my yard treat every other month for 2 years and have no fire ants in the yard but noticed a traval path through the corner of the backyard the other day. It has since disappears, no ants in sight but that makes me thing I need to treat the perimeter to keep them out since our yard treatments end this month or next month. We used to have a scorpion, fireant, earwig problem because our house was a new build and the builder disturbed the woods. Thankfully a 2 yr contract with a company who uses organic pest control methods, has managed the pests well with every other month treatments.
> 
> 
> Elohi(Earth)




Treating the yard perimeter and your house perimeter are good ideas. Earwigs and scorpions are common with new builds especially if you have brick. Every house we built we had scorpions in the beginning. Are you going to renew your contract.


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## Elohi (May 2, 2014)

I'm not wanting to because it kind of expensive and I'd like to lessen the toxin load of my yard since I'm going to be having leopards in it some day. Right now they have a small outdoor sunshine enclosure that they get to spend an hr or so in when temps are just right but someday they will have most or all of the backyard and I'd like to give my yard time to detox. But I'd still like to keep the bad bugs out. Will perimeter treatment work if I keep it up, since the only bugs that have returned so far are rollie pollies and some little dark colored centipede looking things? And those are being found near the perimeter because neither neighbor is a hardcore yard greater. But my yard has been baron of bugs for quite some time. If you lift rocks, you find old rollie pollie carcasses...nothing else. But the Leo enclosure is attracting pollies and I don't mind those at all LOL. 


Elohi(Earth)


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## Elohi (May 2, 2014)

Ugh, I take that back. We have wasps around the eves. I need to call before my contract is up and let them know. 


Elohi(Earth)


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## AmRoKo (May 27, 2014)

You could do this with a fire ant colony to and have a piece of art in the process, Haha.


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## Jlant85 (Jun 23, 2014)

awwwww dude genius idea! Might as well! lol... be a great decor for your enclosure! lol


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## Yellow Turtle (Jun 26, 2014)

Molting aluminium? That's really the kind of revenge I want those fire ants to taste.


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## Team Gomberg (Jun 26, 2014)

Wow what a video!


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## Moozillion (Jun 29, 2014)

OMG!!! That was AMAZING!!!!


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## Elohi (Jun 29, 2014)

I am about to get some fire ant stuff to put around the perimeter of my yard. I have fire ants a coming from one of my neighbors yards and they are not helping my garden or my tort yard, at all. Annoying creatures!
I've found an area they are coming through the wooden fence, and their path leads down the side of the tort pen right to my garden. I hate fire ants! 
I'm still looking for a way to get rid of rollie pollies without putting toxic junk on my edible garden. :0/


Elohi(Earth)


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## jtrux (Jul 12, 2014)

Here in San Antonio, they are a real problem. I find them in my pens all the time but rarely do I find a mound. If I do, I isolate it with some sort of partition (wooden or wire mesh) and treat it. Once it's dead I use a shovel to remove the contaminated soil and replace with fresh soil. Works well for me.


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## Turtlepete (Jul 13, 2014)

I think the fire ants around here have become immune to Andro. It's just an annoyance at this point. Treat the mound, they just move. The best solution I have found....Take a concrete mixing pan and gasoline. Dump about a cup of gasoline into the middle of the mound, drop the mixing pan over it upside down, and voi'la, no more ants. This way they actually die before they just relocate.
As long as the animal's are kept away from the area, afterwards you can just scoop the mound out and wash in the soil well. Don't have to worry about little granules of Andro somehow getting in the enclosure and the turtles finding them....


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