Are these Fire ants? Lots of these in Ga. And if you don't get rid of them they can be horrible. People can even get allergic to them. They feel like fire when they sting, and it can spread.Try Fire ant killer, the dust that you sprinkle a teaspoon per mound and put a line all the way around the stall or sprinkle it inthe shavings. I'll bet it is fire ants, they love shavings.I regularly sprinkle all mounds and around the barn if I see evidence of them. The horses won't eat the poison, mine advoid it like the plague. I've heard of injuries from stoping and kicking. You can get the poison from Home Depot, or Walmart, Lowes. Make sure it's not the kind you have to water in, or amdro which is a bait, takes 3 months to work.They need to treat the property. I've heard of neglectred pastures where they were so many ant bites it killed calves. Maybe they don't understand about Fire Ants, they can be black or red, about the size of an I or bigger, nasty leave blisters after 24 hrs.Hurts terrible, I take benadry to head off a reaction. No wonder you horse got hurt, kind of a negligence thing. Laurie an Rascal ----- Original Message ----- From: Kelly Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 8:20 PM To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [RC] strange lameness This isn't really endurance related, except that
we were starting to condition for endurance with
this horse, but I need some advice/thoughts:
My sister's arab gelding developed a strange limp
this morning. The boarding barn we are at will
not allow full time pasture board, so the horses
must be put into stalls at night. We've been
having HUGE ant problems this summer- in the
pasture and stalls. No one else seems to be
bothered by all these ants.. which I think is
part of the problem. If the other 20 stalls were
prayed too,it might make a difference. We weren't
comfortable spraying ant killer inside the stalls
with the horses, so we sprayed the store bought
killer on the outside, and used some other
methods we'd heard worked on the inside. First we
tried lemon juice, didn't work, then baby powder,
didn't work, then a bleach/water mix along the
back walls... also didn't work. The ants are all
in the shavings of the stalls and bite your legs
while you clean the stalls, and obviously are
biting the horses. It seemed to really bother my
sister's gelding more than the other horses
though, and he would stomp his hind feet very
hard. We asked to leave them out until we could
get rid of the ants... but no. Anyways, this
morning when we brought him out of his stall he
was somewhat lame on his left hind foot. It
doesn't really seem to hurt him. He steps with
his toe first, then his joint kind of pops down
into the step. Sort of like when people can pop
their joints in and out. It doesn't seem to be
painful for him. His step size hasn't changed or
anything.. it just looks bad. Now that he's hurt
himself, we're allowed to leave him in a small
pasture all day, so we're hoping he can walk it
out. Leaving him out will atleast let him escape
the ants until we find out what's wrong. We think
it's from all the stomping,but have no clue what
might be wrong. If it isn't any better tomorrow
we're going to have the vet out, and I guess need
x-rays? What do y'all think?? And how do we get
rid of all these ants!?!?!
Thanks for any thoughts.
-Kelly
p.s.- We are looking for a new place to board
now!! We're in Georgia in the Conyers/Gwinnett
area if anyone knows of a good facility.
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