Flies and such

[jrleader99]

I have not had any issues yet with flies but I had read about a month back about putting a couple of shiney pennies in an open/closed baggy of water kept flies away because they think they are very large spiders. I have not tried this before but from my memory (which is not all that great by the way) everyone who tried this seemed to agree that it works.

I also have sprayed most of my yard with a garlic based mosquito spray (Mosquito Barrier) that has kept our mosquito population down to nearly nothing, which in South Jersey is unheard of. This may be contributing to the lack of flies in my yard and coop too.

Now I am just waiting to see what the Greenhead population

that should be coming out in July and August will think of the Garlic spray.

 

[TcherDawn]

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Where do you get this powerful garlic spray and what is it called? If I spray it on my tomatoes on a hot day will it smell like I am cooking sauce?

 

[CountryMom]

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Good Idea! I have used the golden malerin fly bait in small jars. I have a problem with humidity turning it into liquid and not attracking as well. I too worry about the birds getting a hold of it. And any other livestock since we use the bedding as fill around the ranch. I will try the jugs though and see if it helps. My quail barn is a constant battle. My coop not so much.

 

[1acrefarm]

I used to use the bag traps but it was a little expensive for my tastes. I now use the milk jug traps. The jug tops are reuseable and I bait the jugs with a large dead minnow. Any type of fish that fits in the jug would work. When I am ready to go with a new jug I replace the flytrap top with the original milk jug top then dispose of jug. It is better if your milk comes with screw on caps.

 

[Im4dabirds]

The bag traps worked for me but are a little costly and oh so stinky! DH thought it was the chickens and was not happy at all! So I guess I'll try the jug traps.

 

[1acrefarm]

I will warn you they stink too.

 

[jrleader99]

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That is funny. Actually my wife was reheating pizza for the kids when I started spraying it and she thought that the pizza was what was smelling so good. The garlic smell only lasted a couple of hours and then nothing out of the ordinary.

If you search Mosquito Barrier you should be able to find a link to the page. It is fairly expensive (something like $80/gallon) but I think it covers about 5 acres. I only sprayed the part of my yard that we concentrate our activity on, driveway, swingset, garden and coops. So far so good.

Last summer we got a swing set for our kids and they were unable to play on it because of the gnats and mosquitos. This year since I sprayed it, they have been outside just about everyday. And I would have thought that this year would have been worse since we have had so much rain this spring.

 

[scogind]

Sprinkle wood ashes all around in your coop and run. These will keep down the flies and take away any smells too.

 

[Linda Jayne]

A couple years ago I found this website that shows how to make a fly trap from an old 5 gal bucket. It was designed by a lady that keeps horses. We have found it works great for us. Here's the website link:

http://www.horse-talk.com/horsetalk24.html

 

[kuntrygirl]

I use the bags that you fill with water. I tried using the homemade gallon jugs but that didn't work too well. I caught about 5 flies in 2 weeks time. I also tried to glue strips but that was even worse. It's too messy and didn't catch many flies. I have about 75 chickens, so in about 5 days, the bags were full. It works WONDERS!!! I would not use anything else. I love the bag traps!