How to rid my yard of flies?

[jrabbit]

We are in Houston, hot & muggy ... we have 6 free-ranging hens in our back yard. The flies are getting RIDICULOUS!!!! Currently, the tractor-style coop is located near our back door, and the flies are getting in the house. We're planning on relocating the coop a bit further from the back door, but it will still be in the vicinity. (it will be as far away from the back door as possible) The flies are obviously attracted to the chicken poop and food scraps, though, so I imagine it's going to be an ongoing problem as long as we keep feeding the chickens. We've always had a compost pile, but we've never noticed this type of fly problem before.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Are they more seasonal, or will this be a problem all summer?

thanks!
--janis

 

[Lollipop]

Golden Malrin at the feed store in the equine section. It`s a fly bait used in stables. Very poisonous. Put it where the birds can`t get it or the dead flies........Pop

 

[jrabbit]

sounds great, but with kids, I can't risk something poisonous like that.

 

[chels23]

We put a couple of those bags with water in them around our backyard yesterday. They attract the flies in the bag were they then can't get out. They don't have any pesticides, but I don't know how well they work since I haven't had them up long. I know one of the bags has a lot of flies in it so far.

 

[fledgling]

Do a search for fly predators and order them. They are tiny little wasps that send you in the mail monthly to release in your yard. They work by eating the fly larva. They cannot sting humans or animals. Great product! They work for our cattle, horses, and chickens.

 

[agnes_day]

let the chickens roam the yard and let the grass rest for a while. thats what i had to do because we had some really bad flies!

 

[Akane]

Get rid of livestock.

You'll always have bugs around livestock. That's just life. Flies in the house is just normal to me. You can lessen them a little though. On a larger scale barn swallows and bats work great. My stable has minimal pests and absolutely no mosquitos because of those 2. I put up a board for the barn swallows to build nests on in the barn and I just put up 2 bat houses last fall on the back side of my coop to try and put a dent in the bug population here. On a smaller scale you can get fly traps and fly predators like have been mentioned. Fly traps don't have to be poisonous. Some just contain water and a harmless fly attractant. Flies go in, can't get out, drown in water, and the rotting bodies attract more flies. They do have a slight odor but usually not noticeable if you aren't standing right next to them so long as you remember to empty them or change the bag as needed.

 

[Im4Eggcellence]

I haven't done this myself yet, but I'm wondering if you could make some fly traps with "Tanglefoot" (I think that's what the sticky stuff is called", and have them accessable to the chickens who could then peck off the flys for snacks.

I would love to hear anyone's experience with this approach.

 

[Jskip1]

This is what I used:
A closed plastic bottle with 3 holes in the upper half of the bottle, inside the bottle was water with some vinegar/honey/wine etc. I tried some stuff and I think a bit of wine added to the water worked best, there was another one that worked really well but I can't remember what it was.
If you are willing to give it a go, don't make the holes too big or the flies will escape from the bottle, but don't make them too small either or they won't get in. I made holes in the size of a normal bottle cap.

 

[ThePamperedPullet]

We have 102 chickens in 9 pens and the flies get horrible especially if we have a rain with wind and the poo gets damp. We lightly spread Sevin Dust in the pens and it seems to knock them down for quite a while.
Fly larvae are maggots and they get into the poo and stuff on the floors of the pen where they grow into flies. The Sevin dust seems to kill the larvae enough to put a good dent in the population.
It won't harm the chickens either. It works great for mites and other little pesties.