Hundreds if tiny flying bugs in and around my duck house....help

[M Kelley]

I have 4 pekins and they are about 8 weeks old, once we moved them outside into their run, they learned to go into their house at night after we placed them in it at night time for a couple of days. Our run is cement but I have rubber horse stall mats covering most of the cement, we hose it down sometimes twice a day. They forage around my yard for a couple hours each day and they have a pool that we fill daily, I have pine wood shavingis in their house and clean is as needed. I noticed that my ducks were not putting themselves to bed for the past few nights and realized that there are hundreds of bugs all over their house inside and out, so I cleaned out all the shavings and I'm letting it air dry, what can I do to prevent that. The bugs are about the size of a gnat and we live in Massachusetts, not sure if that info helps.

 

[TracyLovesDucks]

Might they be fruit flies? My granny calls them sour flies because they are attracted to the sour smells of rotting/fermenting/aging/decomposing fruits, veggies and other organic matter. They are also attracted to mold and moisture in general. The sour flies that I get in my duck house also have an affinity for duck poop (classy little things).

You can google image search for "fruit flies" to see if that's what they are. Then you can google "fruit fly trap" to get more ideas for home remedies to get rid of them. There might also be some good threads here on BYC regarding the issue if you do a search.

Airing out your duck house is probably a good start. Try to keep it dry in there and around the perimeter, make sure there's no wet feed in there, make sure there's no rotting organic matter in or around the house. And remove the duck poop (I clean poop out once a day). If it's an option for you, put a fan so that's it's blowing as hard as possible to displace the little flies while the ducks are foraging during the day (and helps to keep it dry and cool). Good luck and let us know if you find a really good solution!

Also, I've never used "fly predators" and don't know a whole lot about them, but maybe they are worth looking into?