Features Applications Livestock Production Manure Management Other United States
Fly management strategies

May 30, 2017, Casselton, ND – Flies are proliferative and persistent creatures. They can lay 50-150 eggs every few days, and within a two-week period a population of 350 to 1,000 flies is in your horse barn.

No matter how many flies you swat or spray with a can, hundreds more drop from the rafters and buzz your ear and circle your head, waging an air raid on any living creature in the barn.

Flies play dirty, too. Flies are dirty little creatures thriving on manure, rotting feed and wet straw. These little buggers will land in a pile of poo and then fly to your to-go cup of coffee and land right on the lid when you haven’t even taken a drink yet.

Environmental management of fly breeding sites is the most beneficial and effective way to manage flies.

Couple environmental management with insecticides and fly predators, and you have a strategic plan of attack to stop the fly raid.

It takes about 2 weeks for fly eggs to become adult flies. Adult flies like to lay eggs in manure, rotting feed and wet bedding. If we can get rid of manure in the barn at least twice a week, replace stall bedding weekly and keep things dry, our battle with the filth flies are half done.

Pyrethrin-based premise sprays and animal sprays provide some temporary relief from the flies, providing days to weeks of fly-free zones.

Adding parasitic wasps to the premise will also help reduce the fly population. The stingless wasps will kill the fly pupae that are hiding in manure piles, old feed or soiled bedding.

The female wasps find the fly pupae, lay their own eggs in the fly pupae and when the wasp larvae hatch, they eat the fly pupae. Fortunately, the wasps won’t sting animals or humans and are just interested in flies. READ MORE