Treating ants in outdoor enclosure

How do you treat for fire ants? I'd like to keep an outdoor enclosure, but we have a constant problem with fire ants here in Florida.

What type of chemicals (insecticides/fertilizers) would be harmful to a tortoise?

Would you have to remove them from the enclosure, treat, then wait a certain amount of time?

Can a tortoise deal with some ants wandering around? (is there skin tough enough)

I think I read somewhere that vineagar (sp) works , but not positive.Check 1 of the tortoise forums.
And I wouldn't use any insecticides/fertilizers.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/texas...w-get-rid.html some of this might help.

boil up a huge pot of boiling water. it might take multiple pots. but that is a good non-chemical way to kill them, and it kills them instantly, eggs and all. 7 Dust will run them off, and can be eaten without harm by large mammals, but I don't know about tortoises.

I would definitely avoid Diazinon and those other chemical treatments.

Oh yeah, another thing you can do just to keep them out is to sprinkle ash everywhere. you can also sprinkle ash (from a fire) on your garden vegetables like tomatos and that will keep most bugs off of them. once the ash gets wet tho, it isn't a deterrent anymore.

I wondered if Seven Dust would be mild enough, or Borax.

Thanks.

Learn something new everyday. I didn't know ash would do that.
The only SevenDust I know is a metal band, maybe the ants are into classical!?!

I think I'ld stay away from anything with chemicals just in case the ants drag it into the enclosure or something.

Sevin dust is a derivative of a natural ingredient. and it isn't really poisonous to large animals, which is why you can get away with "dusting" your dogs and cats with it for ticks and fleas. It won't flat out kill fire ants, but it will run them off. borax and comet are less effective, they will just move and quit using the trails the powder is sprinkled on. borax and comet will also kill your grass and all the minerals in the ground so that nothing will grow there anymore. nothing you want anyway.

Here is what I would do. Get rid of all the ants in the enclosure with boiling water, then sprinkle ash around the perimeter in liberal amounts, as in enough that the ants would have to crawl through about three inches of powder just to get inside. you could also lightly sprinkle a bit of Sevin on top of the ash just to make sure. If all of this gets wet, you'll have to do it over again.

Fire ants will kill anything and everything they can, anything that can't get away. We got invaded so severely that pretty much every square foot of our rural acreage was a fire ant nest, and they ran off every living thing except deer. No more snakes or lizards, no more cottontails or jackrabbits, no ticks, caterpillars, nothing. where I live now in Houston is pretty bad, so when I am walking out in the woods I just ram my walking stick through their mounds over and over just to disrupt them a little.

but they are unstoppable for the most part when you consider the vast billions of them that are out there. all you can do is keep them out of a small area. you definitely don't want them in the house. they will stuff up like you can't imagine. they will chew the plastic off electrical wiring, they will make nests up against the inside of the walls which will eventually get wet and start rotting. they can get in the ceiling and build big nests. I hate those things.

OK, I'm going to try food grade DE (Diatomaceous Earth) http://www.earthworkshealth.com/

I hope to find some local so I don't have to pay shipping from an internet order. Not sure where to look. Someone said a feed store.

Anyone try this stuff before?

I'm going to try it on the ants...myself, my horses, and my dogs!