Posted by Sarah Walsh on February 7, 2010 at 10:32am
So, there are about a million flies in my chook run and whenever I cook, a couple hundred of them move into my house...does anyone have any tips and tricks for dealing with this at the source??
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I put the fan on full blast (inside), the flies dont like the movement and go else where.
Theres also a few plants that flies dont like, that you could trial planting around the house and chook run, I cant remember off hand tho so youll need to goggle.
Removing all the fly temptation. Which is mostly the poo. Or get fly screens on your windows. Basically the latter is the only real solution, unless you want to constantly clean up poo. If I get really creeped out by the fly explosion I go out with a bucket of dirt and cover up the most offensive piles. I did read that excess protein gets pooped out so reducing the chooks diet. Our free range girls clearly get way too much to eat.
Of course a drop in temperature helps. We don't have nearly as many flies when it is cold.
I hang sticky fly strips in my kitchen and in sheltered spots around the chook run. You can buy a pack of them for a few dollars at Mitre 10 and other hardware stores. You can only unravel them properly when they are warm - and I have found the quickest and easiest way to do this is to warm them up by balancing them on top of the toaster. Sounds bad but it works!
l made a simple fly trap by cutting the top part of a 2.5 litre fizzy drink bottle off and inverting it into the bottom part then hot gluing it in place. Put some meat and water in an it seems to be working. Maybe not quite as effective as the gordys but still works.
You could try a gordys fly trap. http://www.gordys-flytrap-fitting.com/index.htm
Ive only just gotten around to setting mine up so cant comment on it yet, but from what Ive heard its good.
Replies
Theres also a few plants that flies dont like, that you could trial planting around the house and chook run, I cant remember off hand tho so youll need to goggle.
Of course a drop in temperature helps. We don't have nearly as many flies when it is cold.
Ive only just gotten around to setting mine up so cant comment on it yet, but from what Ive heard its good.