Fly Problems

[Cayuga momma]

Minus the corn that we gave them to see if they would eat it.... what am I doing wrong?? Why all the flies and gnats??? We thought the stone would create good drainage in the pen. We hose/rake it out on a regular basis but not every day. TIA

Hanging vanillaroma car scent trees in the coop and run will help a lot.

 

[quackiemama]

Near Philadelphia PA. Yes it is a pvc feeder but I stopped using it because I thought they were eating too much and a lot of waste. My ducks are fat.

That is funny. We have a lot of gnats but not a lot of flies, I chalked that up to being right off of the Potomac.

 

[Duckworth]

Hanging vanillaroma car scent trees in the coop and run will help a lot.

I think I’m going to try this on my porch near my doors.

In the warmer months, I limit the straw in my pen to the higher two-thirds of the pen, which has a floor slanted slightly to get water to drain towards the corner that has the cleanout door. I put the kiddie pool and all water buckets in the wet, downhill side and the food and bedding on the dry, uphill side. That lets me hose out the wet side daily and put the stall refresher on the dry side. But even hosing it out just moves the poop onto the soil outside the pen. It does get absorbed, but daily hosing means that area rarely gets fully dried out and tends to exist in varying degrees of saturation.

It’s just the reality of where we live. This time of year, right after the spring storm season, when everything is boggy and soaked, is the worst. We are also in a neighborhood, so aggressively managing flies by as many non-pesticide means possible is important for us and our relationships with neighbors, whom we really like and value.

 

[chickens really]

I have sand over the gravel and it really limits the fly problem by turning it every few days. Plus as @Cayuga momma said the vanilla scented car fresheners definitely work..

 

[chickens really]

Hanging vanillaroma car scent trees in the coop and run will help a lot.

...

 

[Duckworth]

We had a fly problem long before we had ducks, so our issue is unlikely to be improved by discouraging the flies from being around the duck pen. That’s why I chose the traps. But I may try the air fresheners instead of rebaiting the traps next time. They would definitely smell better than the traps. I do plan to hang them on my porches. My husband is allergic to most perfumes, so I’ll have to see how that goes. I think our neighbors may object, since our traps are probably catching most of their flies, too.

 

[Duckworth]

Or better yet, I will relocate the fly traps to behind our garage near the alley to trap what we can and put the air fresheners in the duck house and pen and on the porches. I’ll get this right eventually.

 

[QuackInn]

Hanging vanillaroma car scent trees in the coop and run will help a lot.

Definitely trying this!! Thanks!