Fighting the Battle with Flies in Livestock Areas

          

( Rendering of fly: science-in-farming.library4farming.org  )

  

     Flies of different kinds can not only be a nuisance to animals but they can bring disease, result in eye infections, contaminate wounds, and lay eggs in wounds which eventually result in maggot infestation.  There are an abundance of different types of flies and what type you have depends largely on your area of the world, and the amount of water and general attractants to these insects.   It is beyond the scope of this post to do a survey of all the types of flies, and so I am simply going to jump to potential strategies of abatement and avoidance.  Some flies are more easily dissuaded from occupying your area than others.  It will likely take several strategies to decrease them in numbers from your farm or rural home.
                  Flies are attracted to water, livestock, urine, stool, and any type of open wound. They are also attracted to wet hay, or any foodstuffs which are left beyond consumption. (Like soft dog or cat food left in the bowl.)   First, we should try to avoid the items we know will attract them.   My manure pile is therefore quite a distance from the animals themselves.  The flies tend to congregate there and there are fewer numbers with the animals themselves.   Second, clean up stall stool and urine as soon as you can.  I do this twice daily.
I accidentally found a way to decrease flies in the barn.   Although my horses stay in a pasture for most of the day, they each sleep inside a stall all night, and of course, being horses, they urinate and defecate there.   I found that if each morning when I turn out the horses, I sweep out the urine soaked and horse pattied pine shavings. Then, I sweep away the clean pine shavings to the side of the stall.  Then I place about an 1/8 cup per 12x12 stall, of non-toxic Simple Green liquid and then I mop the concrete using a large wet mop.  The stalls smell sweet and the flies stay away.   (I use an industrial string mop and a big yellow industrial bucket with wringer attachment I got from Sam's Club.  Simple Green in industrial sized bottles is also available there rather cheaply.
                    Of course, this does not keep the flies away OUTSIDE the barn.  These are some strategies we can use for that:


First, we can invest in any number of types of physical fly traps.  This is the least expensive and I think it works really well for houseflies especially.

I bait mine with orange juice, but I am told that genuine pancake syrup works best.  I use Shoo Glue as the glue to construct these.  Most of us have plenty of soda bottles.  (Photo:  ecobites.com )

               

This year being truly pushed for time I bought a number of these from Tractor Supply.  They are available everywhere from Amazon to www.drsfostersmith.com

             

These come with a tube of non-insecticidal lure, and work very effectively.

     

There is value in some of the electronic bug zappers.  Some of them can eradicate flies from a large area of square footage.


 

Some of these are quite expensive, but may be very helpful.

                There are

    

This Farnum product is a natural fly repellant for both horse and for rider.



Of course, sometimes the best course of action is to use a true pesticide.  If an animal has an abraded area, sometimes a pyrethrin cream for the region is a good idea as it allows the abraded or irritated region the opportunity to heal.




This is a long an authoritative listing of strategies for dealing with flies in livestock areas from milkrooms to 
perimeter area treatments. It indicates when pesticides are appropriate and how much to use.   This was written by the Virginia Cooperative Extension Office.