FLIES!

[ybhco]

Hi, this is my first time posting here.

I've got a small coop with three hens, and have just recently noticed a HUGE problem with flies. At any given moment, there are 30-40 flies in the coop, and they're swarming around it.

Here are the details:

• We clean the coop once per day. All of the chicken **** is removed from the roosting area and the grazing area.
• They eat regular breeder pellets in a feeder left on the ground.
• We recently added hay to the bottom of the coop to help keep the chickens cooler throughout the summer.
• The food stays dry.

The flies seem to be swarming around the feed.

Any advice is welcome. Am I doing something wrong? Or maybe it's just seasonal? Or are there tricks to keep flies out of the coop?

Thank you,

m

 

[a704]

Yeah I have flies too, unless you introduce a natural predator for the flies they will just always be around, you can try the sticky tapes but I find those to be a waste of money, you could try planting insect eating plants around your coop or finding safe spiders to move near the coop, preying mantis are pretty good at keeping fly populations down but might have to be bought every year

 

[BabyandCotton]

Hi, this is my first time posting here. One of our coops of 7 hens has never had a problem with flies, but our other has (different locations) The first has two huge lemongrass bushes next to it but the other doesn't. I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but if I pull some lemon grass up and put it I the other, the flies file away.

I've got a small coop with three hens, and have just recently noticed a HUGE problem with flies.  At any given moment, there are 30-40 flies in the coop, and they're swarming around it.

Here are the details:

[COLOR=222222]• We clean the coop once per day.  All of the chicken **** is removed from the roosting area and the grazing area.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=222222]• They eat regular breeder pellets in a feeder left on the ground.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=222222]• We recently added hay to the bottom of the coop to help keep the chickens cooler throughout the summer.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=222222]• The food stays dry.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=222222]The flies seem to be swarming around the feed.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=222222]Any advice is welcome.  Am I doing something wrong?  Or maybe it's just seasonal?  Or are there tricks to keep flies out of the coop?  [/COLOR]

[COLOR=222222]Thank you,[/COLOR]

[COLOR=222222]m[/COLOR]

try lemon grass. We planted 2 by are coop and have never had a fly problem

 

[FireGurl26]

I dunno what area you are from but certain times of year all of our flies hatch from the ground and I am talking hundreds upon thousands and they are horrible. Especially when our black flies hatch...cuz they bite the heck out of us. Maybe your coop is located on top of a breeding ground of fly eggs where they hatch every year. I am not a expert on how and when flies hatch but i know from experience the area where they do on our land...so no buildings or structures will be built there. If you could do it, i would move the coop/run to another location of your land. That may be the reason for all the flies...or wait it out till they leave the breeding area.

Another possibility is that there may be something rotted underneath your coop.

 

[ybhco]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. There's definitely not anything rotting under the coop. We move it every two weeks and shovel the "big stuff" out daily. Also, *great* advice on the praying mantises, but I'm one step ahead of ya there... For years, I've been putting 10 egg cases around my yard every spring. I saw a BIG one in my herb garden this morning.

Since I posted this a few days ago, I've seen a big decline in the amount of flies around the coop. For the time being, I'm going to assume it was just a big hatch due to weather (or something dying nearby) and isn't as urgent of an issue as I thought it was.

Thanks again for the help.

Cheers.

 

[kraftyfoxfarms]

Hi, this is my first time posting here.

I've got a small coop with three hens, and have just recently noticed a HUGE problem with flies.  At any given moment, there are 30-40 flies in the coop, and they're swarming around it.

Here are the details:

[COLOR=222222]• We clean the coop once per day.  All of the chicken **** is removed from the roosting area and the grazing area.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=222222]• They eat regular breeder pellets in a feeder left on the ground.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=222222]• We recently added hay to the bottom of the coop to help keep the chickens cooler throughout the summer.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=222222]• The food stays dry.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=222222]The flies seem to be swarming around the feed.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=222222]Any advice is welcome.  Am I doing something wrong?  Or maybe it's just seasonal?  Or are there tricks to keep flies out of the coop?  [/COLOR]

[COLOR=222222]Thank you,[/COLOR]

[COLOR=222222]m[/COLOR]

i know this sounds stupid but its a cheap easy fix. Go to a parts store or walmart and buy you some vinilla scented car freshners the ones that look like trees hang a few in the coop. I have 4 hanging and my fly problem is gone for the most part. I have a few here and there but nothing to really speak of. Its cheap and easy

 

[Jim Wellman]

I'm 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 in the coop.
I also smashed a bunch with a t-shirt.
This morning, most all were gone. The Black Flag Zapper 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.