Flies in the yard...

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Moselle

Moselle

Songster
12 Years
Jan 17, 2008
213
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I'm not having much trouble with flies in the coop/run, but they are ALL OVER the yard! What is your favorite way to get rid of them? They are biting me like mad. I've seen a thing that uses a gallon jug?
 
I like the disposable plastic bag type - they are $4.50 at TSC and work better for me than the jug kind with the pour in bait. They do stink though. PEEE UUUUu...but only when you get right up close to them.

I just hung one in the chicken run yesterday . I've had two of the refillable jug kind in there for a month without much success. In just one day, the disposable bag kind already has MANY flies down in the water and buzzing around trapped in there.
 
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What would you say are their "effective ranges?" Like 15 square yards or 1/2 acre? How high can you hang them? There are a couple spots in my yard where I could hang a trap, but I don't want it too close to my neighbor's yard - they are pretty easy going, but I don't want to stink them out.
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Moselle, we too have had a serious fly problem this year, and DH finally made some traps that have really worked for us. He takes a 2-liter bottle, cuts off the top 1/3, and in the bottom section he mixes water to the bottom of the "ring" of nubs on the bottle with about 1/4 - 1/3 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of vinegar. Then he inverts the top and stuffs it down into the bottom section, making a funnel that the flies go down into. The spout of the bottle should be above the liquid, so the flies get trapped in the bottle and drown.

It doesn't smell really nasty like the storebought traps do, and it works really well! The vinegar keeps the honeybees from getting caught in the trap. Just don't leave where animals or people can knock them over!

We aggressively use these in conjunction with fly tapes, and although nothing is 100% I have noticed a big difference since we started doing this. It is very important to get rid of flies, as they harbor a lot of nasty things ~ they are part of the life cycle of many kinds of worms, diseases, infections, etc.

Good luck!

Jen in TN
 
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This sounds good - do we need to keep them on the ground, or can we put them off the ground a bit or hang them up a yard or so? (We have little kids who I'm sure would just love to 'explore' a fly trap - yuck!)
 
I have a couple of spots under the coop (but outside the run) and in the garden where no one can get to them. Small kiddies, though, change the landscape of things. What if you try one of the hanging jugs - - but put the vinegar-sugar water mixture in it? That might be the best of both worlds.
 
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I use a combo of bag traps and fly parasites from Arbico Organics. So far, it's working. We still have flies, but not as many as we could have.
 
I second the motion about the fly predators from Arbico. Great little bugs. Only thing is, I wouldn't put them where your chickens can eat them or end of story. They need t be near a food source so if you have livestock other than insect eaters like chickens, put the fly preditors under or around the poop of those critters out of chicken range. That way they will hopefully have a food source of fly larvae to get started.

Another great, great defense for next year would be purple martin bird houses if purple martins are part of your area's summer birds. They are great warriors against flies and mosquitoes. You need to do some research though. The martins have real preferences about the type of housing, how and where to place it, and they NEED your absolute TOTAL commitment to keep that housing free of sparrows, starlings and other such nuisances or you make the situation worse instead of better. One place to research the needs of purple martins and how to attract them is through the University of Pennsylvania.

We benefit from both at our farm. Our horses, barn and property have very very little fly problems.

Connie
 

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