Horse Fly traps

[tankernav1]

Hi. Has anyone had any success with horse fly/deer fly traps? Ours are worse than normal this year it seems and I'm hoping to find a way to lessen their population. I've read a lot and know that there is no good answer. However there are a couple of traps out there that seem to promise some hope although they are about $300. Has anyone tried them? Has anyone made their own? We have an inground pool too and they can be bothersome there also. And of course they love to be around my horses. Any opinions? Thanks!

 

[rufus]

We use the bottle traps. They really work, but they stink so bad that eventually we just throw them away and buy another. They went from $7.00 a trap to $8.78, so the fly season is upon us.

My son bought one of those electric fly zappers. We have had it about a year, and I don't think it has killed anything. Wasted money and wasted electricty.

Rufus

 

[tankernav1]

So what are the bottle traps? Where do you get them? Do they really get the big horse flies??

 

[Little Ameraucana Mom]

Homemade Fly Spray

1 - Prepare Coke Bottle:

Cut off the top of the coke bottle from just above the label. It should look something
like this:

2 – Pour in Ingredients

Pour in the following:

.
cup of sugar
.
the 1.5 cups of water
.
the 1 cup of vinegar
.
the table spoon of syrup

3 – Stir

And, just for completeness, stir the ingredients. It can take a couple of minutes for
everything to dissolve, so keep at it.

4 – Assemble coke bottle

You can do this preparation before putting all the ingredients into the bottle, but it
doesn’t really matter.

The first thing to do is remove the lid from the top section of the coke bottle. Then
just invert the top section, and place it inside the bottom section.

Now, on opposite sides of the top of the coke bottle, and ensuring you cut BOTH
sections of the bottle at the same time (the inverted top section and the outer bottom
section), cut a line as shown in the following diagram so that you have a place to hook
the string that will hang the coke bottle/fly trap:

5 – Cut and prepare the string

Cut your string into a 1 meter length of string. It doesn’t really matter if it’s slightly
longer than 1 meter, but you don’t want it TOO long as it might hang a little low on a
long piece of string.

Next, create a loop by tying the ends together with a few knots. Make sure these are
strongly tied to ensure that it doesn’t come apart.

6 – Final Assembly

And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for.

Hook the string into the incisions you made in Step 4, and hang the bottle. Preferably
hang the bottle away from the house. If the fly trap starts filling up with flies, it will
start to smell a bit. And, the more flies that it kills, the more it attracts.

 

[tankernav1]

Oh Wow! Thanks!! Is there somewhere I can see that picture at?

 

[Little Ameraucana Mom]

It is on a pdf file. I don't know how to get the pictures on here. But if anyone would like it. Email me and I"ll send the whole file to you.

 

[mjdtexan]

You are one step ahead of me. I could never get either the horses or the deer to fly. How did you do it? Could you teach it to me?

 

[al6517]

I also use the bottle traps, they are very easy to make and mix and I get about 2-300 flys a day in them, I now use 1 gal jugs though but there are no fly's at all in the coop/pens/runs/feed area.

AL

 

[tankernav1]

2-300 HORSE flies??? wow! I really don't have a problem with little flies because we use the Fly Predators. So I'm hoping this will take care of my big ones.

 

[al6517]

Quote:
It traps all types of fly's, I mix some fly bait/attractant in my slurry it has the pheramones in it fly's cannot resist. Once I set them out the population dwindles really fast and keeps them at bare minimum the rest of the summer.

AL