If you missed the chance to prevent “fly season” earlier this spring and now they’re horrible, what do you do? First don’t do what you usually do, rush out and buy a haphazard collection of “stuff” from the fly control section. Just defending your horses with fly spray, fly masks and hanging stinky traps in your barn won’t work any better this year than it did last year. You might even be making the fly problem worse in your barn. Plus you’re almost certain to not make any difference in the flies your horse hates the most, the Biting Stable Fly. Instead, we recommend a simple four step plan that will really fix the problem, rather than just treat the symptoms.
1. Identify The Fly
Determine what kinds of flies are bugging you and if they are coming from your animals or the neighbors. Different flies come from different places and require different traps and strategy to eliminate them. No one trap, or bait will kill all flies. The easiest way to identify the fly is where they are on your animals. The most common is the non-biting House Fly which reproduces mostly in manure. You will find these flies going for the moisture in the eyes, but they can be anywhere on your animals. The second most common fly around horses and the most bothersome is the Biting Stable Fly. These are blood feeders and you will find them on the fore legs and flanks of horses. If your horses are stomping and twitching it’s these. They can reproduce in spoiled vegetative matter, old mucky compost, and grass clippings as well as manure.
2. Stop Future Flies
Stop flies from reproducing by cleaning up the areas they breed in and adding Spalding Fly Predators. Many people just go after adult flies buzzing around, but that’s only about 15% of the population at any time. If you don’t stop the future ones you’ll be plagued all summer. Fly Predators are the natural enemy of flies, but never bother people or animals. They kill flies before they emerge.
You simply sprinkle Fly Predators near all manure areas every three to four weeks until the end of warm months. Start with a double or triple dose of Fly Predators for the first few shipments if flies are bad. When used alone, Fly Predators take about a month to control flies, as the existing adult flies (which Fly Predators don’t effect) need to die off. When used with traps or bait you can see a difference in a few weeks. It’s OK to spray your horse until the flies are gone. Clean up anytime but only order Fly Predators if you have at least 6 weeks of warm weather left.
3. Get The Adults Now
Reduce adult flies quickly with an aggressive trapping program (plus baits if you don’t mind pesticides). Plan on 3 different trap types each in different places. Removing the adults fast helps a lot as half of the flies you see are females each laying about 900 eggs. Don’t just get a few traps, get a case of each if you’re in catch up mode. Use odor traps to draw flies away from your barn and to intercept those coming from your neighbors. Never put them in the barn or by your back door as they’ll bring House Flies (but not Stable Flies) in from a wide area. Sticky traps are good for inside the barn as they will get the flies there, but not bring more in. Get one per stall. The only trap that will get Stable Flies is the Bite Free. Put them on stakes within 3-feet of the ground, in sunlit areas.
4. Don’t Invite More
Flies have a tremendous sense of smell and if you ever wondered why there are more in your barn than elsewhere, it’s likely BO, barn odor. It may not smell to you, but to flies that urine and manure odor is the place to head to. Use Bye Bye Odor to eliminate harmful ammonia and barn odor and let the flies find someone else’s stinky barn instead. Just spritz the wet spots when you muck out.
Call 1-888-562-5696 for a free consultation on getting rid of your flies now.
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