Killing fire ants in pasture

[Qchickiemama]

I have two empty pastures right now. I'd like to work on the quality of what's growing there while they're empty. On assessing, I found 20+ large fire ant hills.
Question #1: what is best method to kill the ants?
Question #2: if I use Amdro, how long would I need to wait before putting grazing steers on the land?

 

[Baymule]

@SageHill used Boraxo on fire ant hills and said it worked great. Took several days, but they are gone. I gotta get some and try that!

 

[Qchickiemama]

@SageHill used Boraxo on fire ant hills and said it worked great. Took several days, but they are gone. I gotta get some and try that!

Is that borax mixed with sugar or straight borax or an actual product called boraxo?

 

[Baymule]

No sugar, she was afraid it would lure other animals to the bait. Just plain Boraxo soap right out of the box.

 

[SageHill]

I have two empty pastures right now. I'd like to work on the quality of what's growing there while they're empty. On assessing, I found 20+ large fire ant hills.
Question #1: what is best method to kill the ants?
Question #2: if I use Amdro, how long would I need to wait before putting grazing steers on the land?

Hi!
I had a giant fire ant mound and a bunch of others not as large.
I put 20 Mule Team Borax straight up on and around the mound. Nothing really seemed to happened the first two days so I chalked it up to 'old wives tale', but when I went back to check 5 days later with real fire ant killer (Orthene) the activity level and number of ants was down 80% - that's just with the borax, I still applied the Orthene which decimated the mounds in 24 hrs -- dead ants covered the mounds. The mounds were not in pasture or graze areas, but on my interior ranch road. I cleaned up the ants and dust.
I probably could have dosed the mounds with borax a few more times and solved the problem w/o the Orthene.
All the mounds were in areas where I could not get water to unless I put a tank in the utv so I chose things I could apply dry.

 

[SageHill]

Just thought of one more thing on this --- the ant killers say they will kill the queen. I don't know if the borax will do that. If it takes out the mount and the ants come back then I would guess the borax does not kill the queen and you'll have a recurrent problem. Just sayin' !

 

[MTKitty]

If you’re willing and able to free-range chickens and guineas, my ex-MIL did that. I never saw a fireant hill in her central Florida yard.

OTOH, my mother’s yard in central Louisiana was a mess. She would sprinkle something (can’t remember other than it was a shaker can); and that mound would disappear only to have a new one come up within days.