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Ant infestation after hay delivery.. what to do

13K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  walkinthewalk 
#1 ·
I order hay every 2 weeks from a local feed store. They deliver while I'm at work and I have been using them since I moved here 2 years ago.
I got hay delivered Friday afternoon, the same fescue/orchard I had been getting the past 4-6 weeks.

If it makes any difference, it went down from $7/bale to $5/bale, though I asked specifically if it was still clean, dust free, good quality hay. I noticed Friday evening a line of ants from the feed room door straight to the hay. I swept it up again saturday and today.

Tonight it was time to open a new bale, so I moved them around and found a HUGE ant infestation mainly towards the bottom last bale. I had ants on my arms and ATV, and that was from a top bale.

What would you do? Should I call them? What should I expect from them? If nothing, should I discard the hay or just take all the bales out and find the one that is attracting them? I've never had this problem, so just looking for a solution and if I should expect anything from the feed store or not.

Thanks in advance.
 
#3 ·
you bet I would call them. sounds like you have a good relationship established already..I would think that they will work with you, a good customer! If not, I would find a new hay supplier..cuz that might cause a tough chain of events in your barn...thankfully in all the tons of hay I have bought over the years..that is a new one! I hope that they are typical ants & not termites or carpenter ants!
 
#6 ·
Ugh talk about a hassle! So the hay guy came and picked up the old hay and replaced it with fresh bales. There were ants everywhere. By the time we were done loading the truck with the old stuff i was too hott to tackle the ants. We stacked the new hay elsewhere and I waited for hubby to get home. I toss about a bale of hay that had been opened, but oh well... hubby got bit by 2 of the ants, so we suspect fire ants and I dont want to horses digesting that.

So... 30 minutes of cleaning the feed room top to bottom... ants everywhere hay touched. The feed room is looking rather good now though. I am keeping the hay in a trailer in the barn for right now until I can make sure it really was the hay and not another source.

does anyone know of ants that bite that aren't fire ants?
 
#9 ·
I keep a can of Wasp Killer at the barn and that works well for small ant infestations.

If you think you're dealing with a big amount, I would talk to a pest control company and let them know the treatment would be in/around the horses. Sometimes they are willing to work around that and sometimes they're not.

The bad thing with an ant colony is that, if you don't kill everyone on the first zap, the surviving worker ants will pack up the eggs & queen and move a short distance "up the road". That could interpret to nothing more than the other end of your barn:-(

They want to stay close to a water source and having feed close by is another plus for them.

Can you move your feed (in a lid tight container) to another area or even a spare bedroom for now?

This is a really bad year for ants and yes, they ALL sting/bite, no matter what ant species or how small they are:-(
 
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