Flies around my quail hutch.

[JimmyJames]

Hello all!

Very new here and really appreciative of this community. We just got our quail yesterday after months of researching and building a hutch etc...
They are so lovely, and we are very excited. But. holy moly, the flies.

We put them in the outdoor hutch and instantly, I mean INSTANTLY (even before they pooped) the flies were everywhere.
We don't particularly have a fly problem at our house, they are around for sure, but not a nuisance.
We got them from a ranch near us that had about 300 in a large aviary and were thinking that maybe they were dirty from being in there?

I have looked online and seen that vanilla car fresheners will work and also the obvious hanging fly traps.

Does anyone have any suggestions to help?

A little more about the hutch:
It's in two sections, one is enclosed in 1/4 chicken wire (with the floor wire being coated) and the second half is totally enclosed for some privacy. (this section has 1/4 of it filled with sand and wood ash).
I may have made the mistake of 1/4 hardware cloth on the bottom, cause it doesn't seem as though the poop is going through. (we were just so worried about the skunks, rats, raccoons etc that we get coming through our little yard.)

I don't have a tray underneath the wired side. (and there don't seem to be any flies at all in the enclosed sand bottom side.

Any help would be VERY much appreciated. Thank you so much!

~Quail I'll be damned, look at all these flies!

 

[Nabiki]

Myshire Farms swears by QuickStrike. I haven't tried it, but I've been thinking about it.

 

[CliftonQuail]

Myshire Farms swears by QuickStrike. I haven't tried it, but I've been thinking about it.

I had a horrible fly problem around my grow out cages in the garage and bought the QuickStrike based on Myshire recommendation. It helped some, but I didn't think it was doing a good enough job. The cages have poop trays that I empty into a lined trash can every day and put fresh pine shavings on them before sliding them back under the cage. I started covering each days contribution with diatomaceous earth after dumping into the can, which reduced the flies a bit more. Then I hung fly tapes from the ceiling. Still had issues. I have a fan in the garage to keep the air moving. I had it blowing away from the cages and the poop in the trays was always a bit moist. After turning the fan to blow towards the cages, the poop is now dry when I dump it in the trash can and my fly problem has largely gone away.

 

[JimmyJames]

Thank you, both!
Because it's an outdoor coop, I was hesitant to use Quickstrike for other critters that come through. But if all else fails, I will certainly try this.

As a temporary fix, I did put food grade diatomaceous earth on the ground below the open air section, which along with 8 fly strips has helped tremendously!
This is a temporary fix.
I realized that my fear of predators was a little too intense when I chose 1/4 hardware cloth for the flooring. The poop doesn't go through really at all, so I'm cleaning a ton and the flies want to be in the cage as apposed to under it and on the ground.
I plan on changing the flooring to 1/2" hardware cloth and placing a tray underneath (maybe 12" below?) with pine shavings to help keep the moisture down.

Thanks again for the responses!

~James

 

[HillGuy]

The Rescue Fly Traps really help. Also scatter some fly bait, gotta scatter it thin otherwise critters come. Golden Malrin Fly Bait & Quick Strike.

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[Phlighter]

I keep a fly trap under the hutch. It stinks worse than the quail, but, it helps a lot. To the point where I have to empty it every couple weeks. I use fly strips indoors - they'd work outside as well if they were out of the rain and not allowed to swing around.