I cant handle the flies anymore!!!!

[melissastraka]

Someone please tell me how to rid my coops of flies. I dont mind some files but this is like the black plague cloud of flies!!!!!!! I have tilled my run, mucked out the coops twice a week, change water and food 2 times a day, throw hay in the runs over the poo or wood chips...nothing is working! I have tried DE by the bag full, Fly paper in all the trees and coops!


Please oh Please, someone tell me what you do!!!! Any ideas, home methods, anything please!

I cant even enjoy going out to play with them anymore because of all the flies

(these are black house looking flies, those biting flies, the tiny ones that bite...grrrrrr)

 

[H2OKarensa]

Someone on another post said to get those fly traps that have the bag of bait.
I got 2 of them, but they aren't working yet because I forgot to add the water. I guess you can also make fly traps with ACV and other sweet stuff. There's a thread on it somewhere here. Maybe someone knows where to tell you to look.

Good luck!

 

[hinkjc]

Food grade DE in feed and bedding. Works like a charm to keep flies down in the summer.

 

[Chicky Tocks]

I have read and used a method that most people would assume hogwash. For me it seems to be working. I have a large coop and two medium runs with 24 chickens and I have some flies, but hardly a swarm.

Take a plastic baggy and fill it about 2/3 full of water. In each corner of the baggy, drop a couple of pennies and seal it up. Place about 4 of these bags around your runs and coops by hanging them with a nail on your frame. One in each corner should do it.

The reason I've read that this works is because the sun shines through the bags of water and pennies and reflects with prisms. A fly sees about 8-10 images to our one...so the prisms are entirely too much action for the flies eyes and they think it's a fly predator. So they take flight. I am completely happy with this method and so far I have had very minimal flies for the number of chickens I have.

 

[citrusdreams]

How many chickens do you have in how big an area?

My chicken coop, which is empty for a very big portion of the day was smelling horrible, and had flies galore this summer. Plus, with the door open, when it rained, if the bedding got wet it was even worse.

I bed my henhouse with pine shavings. This time, thanks to BYC, I used Dry Stall (the food grade one) on the floor of the henhouse. I don't know how much I actually used, but I lined the floor with it like I would line a pan with brown sugar. I also lined the nests and the top of the nest boxes. Then I put the pine shavings over it. The next day it was significantly better -- though it did have an odd smell to it that I can only attribute to the Dry Stall. But the flies and stink were much better. I think it was so bad this year because of all the spring rains we had. Wetness really makes it smell horrible. That's why I don't keep the waterer in the henhouse, it just made the bedding wet and stinky.

When I replace the bedding in the henhouse, I just rake/sweep the shavings out into the pen and the chickens scratch and wallow in it, when they're in the pen. That didn't have too many flies but I put the Dry Stall out there anyway.

I wouldn't ever use straw, hay or wood chips for the henhouse or pen. I feel it doesn't absorb anything and stuff pools on top. I feel the pine shavings are absorbant and keep the place a little cleaner.

 

[johnwilly1962]

Quote:
I used these one year, boy do they work. I think they attracted every fly in a 3 mile radius. Think I ended up with more flies than there would have been. Also, the flies that didn't drown, actually bred and I had a bag full of maggots. I won't be using them again.

 

[Pandora]

I use the automatic sprayers and load them with the fly spray cannister. This works well. They run on batteries, so can go pretty much anywhere. I've put them in the kennel, rabbitry and chicken coop.

I DON'T use them anywhere that gets minimal ventillation... just me, but I make sure its in areas with good ventillation so there isn't any fume build up.

I've also used the fly traps. They need changed every two weeks... and that reeks! I placed them WELL away from the location I wanted to draw flies from and it seemed to help.

 

[goldenluver]

look up fly predators, you can purchase four months shipments of the predators for about $79.00. these things lay their eggs in the fly larvae so after the first three weeks their numbers should drop.

 

[chicks rule]

Quote:

I was going to suggest this as well, my mom swears by it, lol.

 

[currycomb]

telling this again, it has worked for me. get golden malrin fly bait. cut holes in sides of milk carton or a soda bottle, sprinkle liberaly on the bottom of bottle and hang it up. under cover works best, you do not want it getting wet(that will only breed the maggots)when full of flies, just ad more bait, or dump before adding bait, just not where your chickens could injest the dead flies. not sure what second hand bait does to them, don't want to know. it keeps the cats and dogs from getting into it, and you can hang it high out of the way, where those bait traps say at 4 ft or something, right in my way usually