April S asked about fire ants on another thread, and I thought I would start a thread specifically for this subject so it can be found easier.
"RE: Humidity
I do wish that I could have LF outside but I am afraid that she is too small @ this point to take on FIRE ANTS if they find her. When she gets bigger she can stay outside unatended. I hate ants. Hate them I tell you. How do you all keep ants away from your outdoor enclosures?
I will keep looking for a fogger & such to keep humidity up. Thanks for the ideas."
I hope you all have some ideas to add to this thread. Here's how I deal with them:
I use a very strong liquid poison on the nests that I find outside the tortoise pens, making a berm around the hole and filling it with poison...lots and lots of poison. If I discover an ant hill inside a tortoise pen, I do the same thing, only after all the poison has sunk into the ground, I place a piece of plywood over the hill and place a heavy cinderblock on top of it. I also spray outside the tortoise fences all the way around with Home Defense, which leaves a residual. I think ants are very smart. I know that the poison kills the ones that it comes in contact with, but the others will just take the dead bodies, place them outside the hole on top of the ground and go about their business, abandoning that particular hill and moving to a new spot. They can smell a dead body from miles away. One morning I found a very large dead moth outside my door in the middle of a large expanse of black top, covered with red ants. I followed their trail until I lost it, and as far as I could see it was over 150 feet across black top and decomposed granite, and I finally couldn't see it any more outside my property in weeds. How on earth did they smell that dead moth from that far away?
I have found red ants walking all over my large tortoises, but not seeming to be biting the tortoises. They don't seem to bother live animals, however, last year they ate all my baby box turtles. I had them in a rubbermaid tub outside on a table in the shade. I gave the babies some pin head crickets. I think some of the crickets must have died, drawing the ants to the container, and the ants also attacked the live babies.
I can't leave any turtle/tortoise eggs in the ground because of the red ants. Its a really big problem. We have an agency here in California that will come out and show you how to rid your property of "imported fire ants." But every time I've called them they've told me my red ants aren't the imported kind. They might not be "imported" but they're every bit as lethal!!
Yvonne
"RE: Humidity
I do wish that I could have LF outside but I am afraid that she is too small @ this point to take on FIRE ANTS if they find her. When she gets bigger she can stay outside unatended. I hate ants. Hate them I tell you. How do you all keep ants away from your outdoor enclosures?
I will keep looking for a fogger & such to keep humidity up. Thanks for the ideas."
I hope you all have some ideas to add to this thread. Here's how I deal with them:
I use a very strong liquid poison on the nests that I find outside the tortoise pens, making a berm around the hole and filling it with poison...lots and lots of poison. If I discover an ant hill inside a tortoise pen, I do the same thing, only after all the poison has sunk into the ground, I place a piece of plywood over the hill and place a heavy cinderblock on top of it. I also spray outside the tortoise fences all the way around with Home Defense, which leaves a residual. I think ants are very smart. I know that the poison kills the ones that it comes in contact with, but the others will just take the dead bodies, place them outside the hole on top of the ground and go about their business, abandoning that particular hill and moving to a new spot. They can smell a dead body from miles away. One morning I found a very large dead moth outside my door in the middle of a large expanse of black top, covered with red ants. I followed their trail until I lost it, and as far as I could see it was over 150 feet across black top and decomposed granite, and I finally couldn't see it any more outside my property in weeds. How on earth did they smell that dead moth from that far away?
I have found red ants walking all over my large tortoises, but not seeming to be biting the tortoises. They don't seem to bother live animals, however, last year they ate all my baby box turtles. I had them in a rubbermaid tub outside on a table in the shade. I gave the babies some pin head crickets. I think some of the crickets must have died, drawing the ants to the container, and the ants also attacked the live babies.
I can't leave any turtle/tortoise eggs in the ground because of the red ants. Its a really big problem. We have an agency here in California that will come out and show you how to rid your property of "imported fire ants." But every time I've called them they've told me my red ants aren't the imported kind. They might not be "imported" but they're every bit as lethal!!
Yvonne