Posted: 7/11/2025 5:43:12 PM EDT
| We’re losing the battle with flies. Every day I’m shocked at the sheer number of these things climbing what seems to be exponentially. Things were doing: changing animal bedding weekly, glue traps in the barn, luring traps roughly 1-200ft away from the barn where the pigs and sheep are kept, tons of feed animal safe sprays which seem to do absolutely nothing. We’ve tried Gordon’s, FlyX, etc. I feel terribly for the animals, and it’s getting worse each day. So many sprays are not rated safe for animals for human consumption- they favor species such as horses and dogs. Thoughts on what else can be done to lower the fly population in general and keep them away from the animals? |
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You can but parasitic wasps at farm supply stores, they are only gnat sized but lay eggs on the maggots and eat them. The more fly maggots the more wasps, they are too small to sting a human or animal. ETA - Non chemical control |
Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Saw this a while back How a Farmer Won a War Against Flies |
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Stable flys? Cluster flys? Flesh Flys? Blow flys? Soldier flys? What kind of flys are we talking about here? Depending on the fly, treatment and prevention will differ. Some of those flys lay their eggs in hay/straw, etc.. So having a surplus of hay and straw near the animals is compounding your problem. The best fly solution for me was when I started planting habitat for dragon flys. The dragon flys did 100x better than any chemical solution I tried. Flys and mosquitos are the dragon flys favorite.  How to Attract Dragonflies: Nature's Mosquito Control for a Pest-Free Garden  How To Attract DRAGONFLIES For A MOSQUITO FREE Yard And Garden! |
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I rotate the chems during the season. Right now, Pyranha Stock Guard is the spray. Next up, Prolate/Lintox-HD. The change in chems may help prevent the flies developing tolerance. But, I just do cattle. Staying on schedule, religiously, helps a bunch. They reproduce so quickly, keeping population levels low avoids some of the exponential growth. |
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Golden Malrin works well for flies, just make absolutely sure that desirable livestock, pets & people do not get into it. |
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Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. - Heinlein
Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. - Heinlein
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Combination of the rotting flesh traps and Clarifly works for us, 6 horses and we are pretty much fly free. It's safe for cattle, I have no idea about pigs. Check your hay, sour bales are huge fly producers. Also, check your closer neighbors. The insect problem may not be your doing. |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit
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Originally Posted By CashOnlyLargeBills: Stable flys? Cluster flys? Flesh Flys? Blow flys? Soldier flys? What kind of flys are we talking about here? Depending on the fly, treatment and prevention will differ. Some of those flys lay their eggs in hay/straw, etc.. So having a surplus of hay and straw near the animals is compounding your problem. The best fly solution for me was when I started planting habitat for dragon flys. The dragon flys did 100x better than any chemical solution I tried. Flys and mosquitos are the dragon flys favorite.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxCF8JTaXlI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kx2im0ceCcThanks for posting these. I'm going to watch! Flies are worse here than I ever remember them before. And more "news bees." Uxb calls them tassle flies (tassel flies?) I dunno. Cute, tiny, non-stinging bees that I guess want the salt from sweat, but the land on me and they tickle. I'm like a cow in a pasture any time I sit still for a minute. Stomping, swatting, waving. Makes me wish I had a tail to swat around my legs and arms. I don't want to hurt them but man they're aggravating. |
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Wine is sunlight held together by water~~Galileo Galilei
Well-behaved women rarely make history~~Marilyn Monroe
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Smartpack sells feed additive that makes the poop less of a host for bugs, also a fly spray system that works from a 55 gallon drum sprayed by a timer thru nozzles you install in the barn, and running long lines of 1/4" fly tape string in the ceilings from small J hooks changed out as needed. This will all make a HUGE reduction in all flys. Also spiders and cobwebs. Since doing all that, our horse barn is significantly better! The key is multiple fronts of attack. Any one of those measures won't make you happy, combined, they make an enormous difference. All the decent fly spray systems are essentially the same. The cheapest provider I found and went with is Bugstomper. |