How to Keep Flies Out of Chicken Coop
Where there are chickens, there are flies. It's an inevitable, but totally fixable problem. You can get rid of flies in the chicken coop with a little effort and perseverance. You're tougher than those darn flies! Read on to find out how we managed to get rid of flies in the chicken coop, with just a few cheap and simple tools.
I awoke the other day to find a complete and total infestation of flies in the chicken coop. I mean, there were thousands upon thousands of them. After extensive and rather disgusting research I discovered that we had three different types of flies occupying our land – cluster flies, bottle flies, and house flies.
Because they were all different, there was no one solution to get rid of them. I read that bottle flies are attracted to "filth" and cringed when I realized we had plenty of that to go around. Chicken poop galore up in that place. Flies are attracted to chicken poop, wet bedding, and food scraps in the chicken run and coop. It's incredibly difficult to keep the coop and run completely clean each and every day, unless you want to run around after your chickens with a pooper scooper all day long, and I certainly don't want that life.
How to Get Rid of Flies in the Coop
The first thing that had to be done to get rid of flies in the chicken coop was to thoroughly clean the coop and lay down fresh straw in the coop and run.
After finishing cleaning, I took off to our farm store, Country Max, to supply myself with an arsenal of fly weaponry. I talked with the employees there to get their option on the best fly traps. They suggested a Starbar Fly Terminator Pro Fly Trap and a Super Fly Roll.
I'd never been so excited about fly traps in my life. I followed the directions exactly, set up the fly trap in a sunny area next to the chicken coop.
Starbar Fly Terminator Pro Fly Trap
The Starbar Fly Terminator Pro Fly Trap works AMAZINGLY well. The half gallon jug was completely full to the top after one day and I had to go buy more fly attractant so I could refill it.
What I love most about this fly trap is the same plastic jug can be used forever, you only need to keep buying attractant! The attractant doesn't have any toxic poisons in it, so you can put the dead flies in your compost- it's even advertised on the box as a great garden fertilizer!
Also advertised on the box:Warning: Do not seal dead flies and attractant in an airtight plastic or glass container as the decomposition will cause the container to EXPLODE. Now why would anyone ever do that?
The Poison Free Super Fly Roll
When I set up fly trap, I realized flies were swarming all around it, but at first not many were going in. I found out later they're more interested in going into the trap if other flies are already in there, so it takes a little while for the trap to really get to work. In the mean time, I set up the Super Fly Roll directly next to the trap so flies that didn't go directly into the trap would stop to rest on the sticky trap.
Holy Moly did this work! After three hours the fly roll was completely coated. I couldn't even see the strip anymore, only a blanket of flies. I don't think it would have been as effective if I hadn't put it right next to the attractant.
Here's the only downside to sticky traps- they fill up fast and then you have to throw them away, making them more expensive in the long run. I like the Super Fly Roll much better than the yellow fly ribbon Those traps have a tendency to twist and blow in the wind, getting them tangled up easily. This roll stays put, and the flies really stick to it!
Side note: these sticky traps can't go in the run or the coop. We hung ours just outside of it after learning the hard way that chickens fly directly into the traps and get tangled in the sticky dead fly grossness and can't get it off. Not the smartest, those chickens.
After five days of replacing sticky traps and refilling the captivator, we are finally at a point where we have only a couple flies zooming around our backyard. This plan of attack worked wonders for our issue. In the future we're going to take preventative measures to keep them at bay. Mainly keeping up with poop duty more than we have been.
It's a nasty business, but someone has to do it!
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What do you, dear readers, do to keep flies at bay on your farm? I would love to hear about new and exciting tools to get rid of these nasty pests?
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How to Keep Flies Out of Chicken Coop
Source: https://imaginacres.com/how-to-rid-your-chicken-coop-of-flies/
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