Imported fire ants can cause problems on poultry farms by attacking chickens and foraging on broken eggs. Fire ant stings cause blemishes that can reduce the quality of poultry. For management of imported fire ants in and around poultry houses, you should select programs that use, where applicable, a combination of nonchemical and chemical methods that are effective, economical and least harmful to the environment. For poultry houses and egg farms, use a combination of the following suggestions:
1. Remove food sources (trash, piled feed, broken eggs and dead chickens) and potential ant nesting sites (pieces of lumber, old equipment and manure piles).
2. Remove weeds and grass from around poultry houses with mowers or herbicides.
3. On grounds surrounding the buildings, use the Two-Step Method (see Texas Cooperative Extension publications B-6043, L-5070 or SP-196 posted on http://fireant.tamu.edu). Conventionally-formulated bait products, such as abamectin (Clinch), fenoxycarb (Award), hydramethylnon (Amdro or Amdro Pro), pyriproxifen (Esteem), s-methoprene (Extinguish) or hydramethylnon plus methoprene (Extinguish Plus) can be broadcast-applied outside the poultry house. Do not allow chickens access to fire ant bait or bait-treated areas. Treat individual fire ant mounds that are an immediate threat or that have escaped the bait treatment using a faster-acting insecticides such as a dust (e.g., Orthene), granular, drench or bait-formulated product registered for this use on these turfgrass areas.
4. If ants are nesting inside poultry houses, you can treat surfaces with a registered contact insecticide product. Although some products like ones containing contact insecticides such as permethrin (e.g., Y-Tex GardStar) are registered specifically for control of fire ants in poultry houses, other products, like those containing cyfluthrin, dichlorvos, and lambda-cyhalothrin, are more generally registered for "crawling pests" including ants. Read the poultry section of labels for additional precautions. Do not allow insecticides to come into contact with feed or water supplies.
5. If fire ants are foraging inside the poultry house from ant mounds located outdoors, a chemical barrier can be established around the outside of the building with contact insecticide products registered for that usage site (e.g., lambda-cyhalothrin).
The steps above can be adapted to broiler houses, provided the products used are registered for this site. Because the broilers roam freely in the houses, care must be taken to avoid contact of chickens with insecticides by confining treatments to the outside of the broiler house (See Step 3 above).
The best method is to implement Step 3 around poultry houses and maintain control there with one or two broadcast bait applications per year. With ants controlled outside, there will be fewer ants to be attracted to food sources indoors.
