Flies Galore

[silkieRaiser]

Hi,
So my coop has NEVER had this many flies before. Normally there is only one and thats uncommon. Even with the food scraps we give them. But now, there are like 20 flies flying around the run and feasting on all the food scraps. Is it just seasonal? Or is there something wrong?

 

[JaeG]

Some years they are worse than others. Hang fly paper strips in the corners of your run (not where you are going to walk into them though - nothing worse than flypaper covered in flies getting stuck to you)! There are also traps you half fill with water and add some sort of protein (I find real meat works faster than the powdered protein the traps come with). The flies crawl in the top and can't escape, eventually drowning or dying. They do start to stink though so put them somewhere outside the run and where you don't have to walk past them all the time. They say you can rinse them out and reuse them but we just get the cheap ones and it all goes in the rubbish when it's full. Not even my hubby fancies washing them out just to save a few bucks (not that either of us if overly fond of bugs).

 

[hempsteadjb]

I haven't tried this, but I heard it works...

 

[silkieRaiser]

OK! Thanks you guys

 

[aart]

Um...remove the food scraps?

 

[Lazy Farmer]

I find that the cycle on and off. Some days very few and others day extreme. I don't know of the weather controls them or they just leave to another location that has a smellier food source.
Good question. I can't answer.

 

[aart]

I find that the cycle on and off. Some days very few and others day extreme. I don't know of the weather controls them or they just leave to another location that has a smellier food source.
Good question. I can't answer.

Most insects don't live long, from a few hours to a few days to a few weeks.
Hatch, morph, reproduce, and die.
That often the reason for the 'cycles' we see.

 

[Jim Wellman]

I'm currently having No See Um issues in northeast Florida. For those who don't know, No See Ums go by all sorts of names, but are extremely tiny flies that bite and like open water sources. They're little devils. My No See Ums were all over the inside and outside of my coop. There seem to be thousands of them driving my chickens bonkers; twitching heads and tails.
Last night I put a Black Flag Bug Zapper the coop.
I also smashed a bunch with a t-shirt.
This morning, most all were gone. The Black Flag Bug Zappet is working nicely. I was able to shake lots of dead No See Ums out of it this morning.
I also just installed a small fan in the overhead of my coop to blow these little devils out.
Just checked and all are gone. I turned off the Bug Zapper earlier this morning, but the fan is still on.