Reptile & Amphibian Forums

been working on the turtle pen quite a bit in the last week, preparing hibernarium. seem to have a significant fire ant population in and around the pen this year ---many more than last year. I think I found a mound in the pen and eradicated it (no chemicals). 2 questions, do fire ants present a danger to hatchlings?? does anyone know of a safe repellent or method for keeping ants at bay. Thanks

JOE

YES!, fire ants are a tremendous threat to hatchlings. Your local county extension, State Agriculture office, or University Entomologist may be able to identify the particular ant you have in order to determine if it is actually a true fire ant.

If you are certain that these are fire ants, you can start by sprinkling diatomaceous earth around the mound and around your pen's perimeter. It is no real danger to turtles unless it gets in their eyes or is aspirated, but it rips holes in the insects' exoskeleton. Others have recommended pouring boiling water into the tunnels.

I feel your pain. I battle with fire ants here constantly. I use chemicals on the mounds, but never in the pens. For some reason, they have never colonized the pens (whew).

Hope this helps. Good luck.

ken,
Yeah, that's what I thought. There have been cases of these things killing newborn livestock and such. This is the first time I've had any problems in the pen, this is also the worst year we've had for fire ants in general. I've been using method A in the pen, but we've go them everywhere in the yard. going to set up a perimeter around the pen with either the Boric acid (as mentioned below) or diazanone. just woried about putting these hatchlings in the hibernarium with these booogers. Interestingly, The adults don't seem to be bothered very much by FA, at least in these numbers.

Joe

Joe,
We, too, have had a very tough year with fire ants. We are in a severe drought, and they seem to be thriving in the dry conditions. Just yesterday, I spent the early morning digging for a new pond. I placed several dozen earthworms in a plastic shoebox for this year's hatchlings. I went to work for the morning, then decided to bring them in at my lunch break. Fire ants had invaded the shoebox, and were making their lunch of the earthworms. They made shorter work of the worms than the turtles do.

It is strange, I've actually found fire ants crawling on the adults. It makes me very nervous, but they don't seem to bother them at all. Perhaps their skin is just too impervious to the ants' mandibles?

I'm usually very conservative when it comes to chemical insecticides. The seriousness of these fire ants, combined with the fact that they thrive alongside humans and their pets, leaves me little choice. Based upon yesterday's carnage, I'm going to have to ask my neighbors if they mind me treating their yards. I'm going to look into that boric acid. I usually spray ant killer on the mounds and cover them with a shoebox and rock for about a week. Let us know how your treatments fare.

Take care.

hey ken,
yeah the adults seem to tolerate these guys fairly well although i would be concerned about a "swarm" situation if a mound was left in or around the Pen. It seems if the ants are relatively undisturbed, they're not very interested in biting ??? Found 1 mound in the pen last week (after much searching) and 2 or 3 kettles of hot water seemed to take care of business. It was also interesting that the ants seemed to be mixed with ants from another mound that I found 15 feet away. It too was eradicated. Heading out there now to do some recon, want to make sure i'm not infested before I place hatchlings in pen for winter..I too am not a big fan of of insectisides or toxic chemicals in the environment. I typed diazanone this AM but meant AMDRO. Actually, the DE or BA sounds like the best alternative. Think your correct about the hot, dry summer as well.

JOE

"Heading out there now to do some recon"

Hahahaha...give 'em H, E, double hockey sticks! HOOAAHH

Diazinon was taken off the market in 2004 I think.

Diatomaceous earth, boric acid, boiling water or other 'mechanical' pest killers will be the safest thing to use around your pets.
Link

I agree 100%, I'm not a big fan of insectisides but I am practically forced to use AMDRO (sparingly)at times in the yard.
I am actually very catious about not using this anywhere near the pen, however at this point it may be the lesser of 2 evils. i'm going to start with some DE or the BA and see what happens. Steph, i woold be interested in speaking with you, or anyone, about relocating or placing juveniles. I stated out with a pair of rescued wild turtles and now have 10!!! Thanks

JOE

I don't know if you went private with Steph or not...if so, she can help you out.

If not, would you be able to tell in which State you live? I may have a contact or two for you, because it sounds like you live in the Southeast.

thanks ken,
don't think steph has gotten back to me yet. I live in cental SC and I would appreciate any info.
Thanks
JOE

My computer thinks you're spam, so I've tried contacting you offlist...let's see if that works.

And, while I'm on the subject, apologies to anyone else who *may* have tried to contact me offlist lately and gotten no response.

I don't love my ISP but am stuck with it for the time being.

I use boric acid powder for any kind of insect infestation. It's less toxic than table salt and safe to use around the house to kill ants, roaches, spiders, termites, etc. There's a product called HotShot sold at places like Home Depot. It's marketed as a roach killer, but it's nothing but boric acid powder and will kill virtually any kind of crawling insect. They walk through the powder film and die later. Boric acid is a best-kept secret of professional exterminators, because if everybody knew how effective and cheap it was, they'd be out of business. It's dirt cheap, works like nothing else, and is very safe. You just puff a little bit of it down the hole. When exterminators come to your house and charge you hundreds of dollars to drill holes and squirt termite killer around the place, it's just a liquid boron derivative that uses the same exact active ingredient as the cheap powder you can buy for yourself. Years ago I had a persistent roach infestation in a store I owned. I had a contract with an exterminator who repeatedly tried and repeatedly failed to get rid of the problem, all the while charging me an arm and a leg. One of my customers told me about boric acid and I decided to try it out of desperation. Within two weeks, the problem was solved and never came back, and it cost me $3.99 to do it myself.

thanks nj,
have used the BA for roaches indoors, may have to give it a try. Sounds like I could use it to set up a perimeter around the pen.

JOE