I know flies come with life and have their uses but they are driving me nuts! I also don't want it to get so bad that the neighbors are bothered too. Does anyone know of a safe (non chemical) way to keep the fly population down in my chicken yard? I clean almost every day and the flies are in the yard not the coop. I am gleaning a lot of helpful information from all of you! Thank you so much.
go to tractor suppy TSC. get a fly trap plastic bottle with black lid that pops up.about $5. use the supplied phermone. add water. put in sun on ground. catch MILLIONS of flies. bury them around garden?pasture?reset trap!! or use a farnam fly terminator trap, or "Big stinky" brand trap. they all work around chickens, cows, dogs!! couldn't survive without them around here!!
Flies are something irrating, I agree. What I've done is use Sweets PDZ, http://sweetpdz.com/, around the coop and run. I will sprinkle some under the birds' favorite roosting spots. I helps with the odor as well. I agree with Mark on the plastic fly traps, they do work well. Good luck.
I also use Fly Predators. They are great! They eat fly larvae and don't bother people or animals. I get mine from Spalding Labs. http://www.spalding-labs.com If you have dogs, horses, cattle, goats or if your neighbor does, I highly recommend them. Have used them for many fly seasons!
I just sprayed 48 gallons of sevin today, mine is mostly a tick problem. Two of my kids have had ticks on them and I had 2 on me. This is all in a period of 3 days. I didn't spray by the chickens, just the rest of the yard. If it kills any deer flies around here then it was well worth it. All these ticks around here this year, cant take the risk of anybody getting lyme disease. I have never seen this many in a short time.
Thanks for the link. I have never heard of these before. A bit too expensive of me as I only have 12 chickens and the minimum order seems to be about $55 a year. But if I had more animals, or more flies, it would be worth it!
