Do Anteaters Make Good Pets?

I have a big problem with little ants. Not the really tiny micro-ants, but the red ones that are maybe 1/2" long. They are surprisingly painful when they bite you and leave a sizable welt. I have tried sprinkling the anthills with Bug-B-Gone and it seems to work for about three days and then they just open up a new hole and go on about their business. I even tried spraying them with Raid but that had little effect. Anyone have a product that they like for getting rid of ants? If it's possible I would prefer a product that won't kill any birds that eat the ants. The quail appear to eat the ants but I can't really confirm this. In any case they don't eat enough of them to make a difference so now I'm wondering about anteaters and if they would like living in Southern California High Desert and if the coyotes would bother them and if they could actually control the problem. Seriously.

Reply to
Ulysses
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amdro

Reply to
charlie

You are describing fire ants. You must live in the South. We used to pour gasoline down their nests and set them on fire. Fight fire with fire!

Reply to
badgolferman

You need to go after their food supply. Cover your trash; spray the bags going into the trash bin, etc.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

people like you should stay in cities. Not everywhere needs to be a hazmat site.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

Sounds like you have fire ants.

There are fire ant baits that work somewhat in at least slowing them up. One year I had so many fire ant mounds in my yard I had my lawn care company spread something on my yard that got rid of them for that one season. It was rather expensive and I don't know if it was lethal to the birds, but it did stop the ants for a year or so.

Here in Texas they are experimenting using some kind of imported tiny wasps that are supposed to eradicate fire ants for once and all.

Freckles

Reply to
Freckles

and that technique worked well with the african bees, didn't it?

Reply to
charlie

"Freckles" wrote in news:le2dnUQS-tP9W-zXnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

fire ants are only about 1/8" long.

the wasp is the Phorid Fly.

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Reply to
Jim Yanik

As the other poster said, you can try Amdro but the ants here won't eat that anymore. The other solution that seems to work is Orthene, a nasty smelling white powder in a black plastic bottle that you sprinkle on the mound. In the end all you really do is move them but you can usually move them away from you. The down side is you might get ants backfilling the environment that are more of a problem. I got rid of fire ants that stayed outside and got black ants that are a real problem in the house. I have them pushed back right now but they are still around. I kinda miss the fire ants. ;-)

Reply to
gfretwell

African bees were brought to South America in the fifties as part of a lab expiriment. The problem was that they got outside of the lab.

The interesting thing about the african bees is that they are virtually identical to our regular European honey bees, and are actually no more venomous, either. The difference is that it takes very little to provoke african bees to attack, and once provoked, they attack in greater numbers and over greater distances.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Danniken

Pump their holes full of DDT.

Reply to
Van Chocstraw

Get some Phroid Flies...

Stolen without permission from:

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Texas Makes Zombie Fire Ants Posted by samzenpus on Wed May 13, 2009 10:20 PM

from the what-could-go-wrong dept.

eldavojohn writes

"What do you do when a foreign species has been introduced to your land from another continent? Bring over the natural predator from the other continent.

Scientists in Texas have introduced four kinds of phorid flies from South America to fight fire ants. These USDA approved flies dive bomb ants and lay an egg inside the ant. The maggot hatches and eats away juicy tender delicious ant brain until the ant is nothing more than a zombie that wanders around for two weeks before the head falls off and the ant dies. A couple of these flies will cause the ants to modify their behavior and this will be a very slow acting solution to curb the $1 billion in damage these ants do to Texas cattle ranches and =97 oddly enough =97 electrical equipment like circuit breakers. You may remember zombifying parasites hitting insects like cockroaches."

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Try Tero. It contains the ingrediant Boric acid, toxic to insects, low toxicity to humans and animals. You may have fire ants.

Reply to
Phisherman

Not if you have ants in your pants!

Reply to
Oren

I noticed that every day I blow out my bug zapper, all the bugs are gone off the drive way by evening. I know the birds eat some but I noticed today a dead bug moving across the driveway. There was an ant under it carrying it away.

Reply to
Van Chocstraw

Ant baits work, boric acid might. For the little ants I use the cheap round baits. For big carpenter ants its a special bait product you have to research. There are a few baits on the market that they take the poison back to the nest.

Reply to
ransley

If they are fire ants then I guess I should call Vector Control. I think I heard something several years ago about a county program to try to control the. I just never knew what a fire ant was.

As for getting rid of their food supply I live on 20 acres and they appear t o eat the greasewood and sage brush and I'm not allowed to clear it due to environmental protection laws. Occasionally I'll throw a dead mouse from a mouse trap into the bushes and they might be eating those but I'm talking about a LOT of ants. When the sun is shining I don't think there is one square yard of my 20 acres that does not have at least one ant on it, usually a red ant. That seems to leave amdro (I'll have to look that up), DDT (that should work, might be hard to find though), and gasoline. Gasoline I can get but I'll have to make sure the Fire Captian isn't flying over as I live in and Extreme Fire Hazard Area. :-D

Reply to
Ulysses

Yea, you always have to think of the consequences. My kids wanted me to get rid of the ants on the top of our hill and I explained that we might end up with something worse instead. I also wanted to get rid of the poison oak next to our creek but the weed killer is potent for about two weeks and you never know when it's going to rain here in the summer and then it would probably end up in the ground water--our well. Fortunately the poison oak doesn't seem to bother me any more.

Reply to
Ulysses

Use some of those WMD they found in Iraq, against them.

Reply to
HH

Thanks. Is that the same thing as roach powder?

Reply to
Ulysses

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