Chickens are being harrassed by tiny flies!!!!!

[anggirl]

I need help and fast! Live in South Mississippi and weather is getting much warmer. A few years after Hurricane Katrina, I noticed that small "sand flies" were bothering my birds but not very concering. My flock, which in is in a dirt pen about 30 x 30, has been for the last week being harassed by tiny flies. They are flies and not gnats and they are swarming around my birds. The flies even bother me when I go to gather eggs. The flies are so bad during the warm afternoons that my birds' heads are covered in blood from the constant scratching and peeking at each other. They get no relief even when I let them out of the pen to forage. They only time they have no flies on them is at night. PLEASE help so my birds dont die from all this sratching etc??!! Is there something safe for the birds that I can put in the pen (sevin dust??) or spray on the birds (mosiquito repealant?) or fly traps?? I wonder if these are not imature house flies but there are millions of these flying around my sweet birds. Help ASAP!!!!

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

Do the flies seem to be confined to the chicken's pen? is there something aruond that is attracting these flies?...maybe try fly strips, but out of reach from the chickens.

 

[anggirl]

The flies are mostly around and in the chicken pen, but they do follow the chickens out into my 1 acre yard and continue to mess with them. I let the chickens out so they can get some relief and letting them out does let the problem up. There is nothing but compacted dirt in the pen/yard at the moment, no grass, no standing water, no hay. I have just got to get them relief

 

[baltimoreharps]

If you can get some Stall Dri or some Sweet PDZ from your local farm place or TSC, I'd do that first off. It dries up poo very quickly so the flies don't have something to lay thier egs on.
Sprinkle some of that around the yard, and especially on the poo that is fresh, clean the coop top to bottom and then sprinkle some of that around on the ground, then if you have it, add some DE to the nest boxes and roosts, etc to make sure that the nest's are free of flies, mites, lice, etc.

Cleaning a coop is very important, you can check around the site to see what type of coop you have and how you should clean it. With the hen's heads being bloody, can you get some Blue-Cote to help that so they aren't picking at each other?
That must be a bad infestation of flies!!

One thing that I picked up from here and other messageboards is to take a water filled ziplock bag and hang it over the coop door, or wherever the flies are bothering the hens, and just let it sit there.
Flies cannot STAND it! I don't know why, unless it's thier vision that messes with them, but they HATE seeing that water.

The other remedy that is natural is the get a few 2 liter bottles, cut the top 1/3 off of them, rinse, add 2 cups water, 1 cup vinegar, 1 cup sugar, and if you have it, a tablespoon or two of honey. Put that mix into the bottom half, then turn the 1/3 rd of the top updside down, and either let it hang or place near a spot where the flies like to gather.
Kind of like a yellow jacket trap, just bigger.
Hope that helps!

 

[geebs]

De and change their feed program so it isn't stinky.. Feed through DE and use spices such as tumeric and garlic and cinnamon on whole grains with cranberries and nuts.. and some Flax seed... This will improve their poop quality and make it less inviting. No barley... Wheat oats, millet.. black oil sunflower seed (whole) tine pepitas.. celery seed and nuts... Not salted or roasted but just raw... Mix up a little of this with leftover beef fat or bacon dripppings and put into a discarded tuna can.... top with wet cat food... makes a nice very nutritious meal that won't be as desireable as the wet stinky droppings.

 

[JROOSTER]

These might be Pigeon flies. If I were you I would google pigeon flies, then I would get sevins dust and dust coop and birds. Also someone recently posted something about flies like yours on birds and someone told them about a spray. I cant remember the name of it so I would do more research here on this forum. The spay they were talking about sounded great and you didnt have to stop eating the eggs when you used it. Hope this helps.

JROOSTER

p.s. if these are pigeon flies they dont lay eggs in poop. They live off the blood of the bird and drop their larva just when its about to hatch on the ground. I have also seen them called Buffalo flies.

Edit for spelling. whoops