I've been struggling with vats of flying, stinking, green bottle flies since the day I got chickens. They swarm and annoy and worst of all they're G R O S S. Way worse than house flies. A house fly is like an annoying teenage girl who says "like" every second word. Bottle flies are like an ever growing gang of 15 year old boys with a pack mentality, screaming f*ck at the top of their lungs at 2 in the morning and peeing into mailboxes. In other words, WAY more annoying.
Plus of course, bottle flies are dirty (they breed on poop, then fly over to your cob of corn and walk all over it) and they have the potential to kill your livestock through flystrike.
For years I've made and used these DIY fly traps which actually work GREAT but are a bit gross.
I've decided that instead of trying to fight these flies with traps and sticky tape I'm going to just let nature take its course. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Live and let live and all that. In fact, as an apology for all the trapping and sticking I've tried to do, I even got the bottle flies some friends to play with! I ordered them special. Bug buddies!
The fly parasite is actually a parasitic wasp. I was so sure they'd get along with my bottle flies, but as it turns out ... fly parasites actually attack and kill bottle flies.
Who knew? I did. Because reader Shauna Henry told me so last year. She uses them in her chicken coop.
I ordered 10,000 of them.
You can get delivery of 10,000 parasitic flies for about $20. How they work is they attack bottle flies when they're in their pupa stage. The parasitic wasp burrows into the bottle fly pupa, kills it, then moves on. Over and over again. So the bottle flies are killed even before they become flies. So tragic.
Gosh. And I thought I was just inviting over a few friends for my bottle flies. Instead they were all killed in a homicidal frenzy. Such a shame.
Depending on how many flies you have, you need to get delivery of new fly parasites every 2-4 weeks through the summer.
There are a lot of companies online you can order them from. Here in Southern Ontario I got them from Bugs for Bugs, Natural Pest Management.
The fly parasites are gnat size parasitic wasps that are nocturnal and don't bother with humans at all. All they want to do is attack and kill fly pupa. They're good like that.
The fly parasites arrive at your house in a small bag, in small box a couple of days before they've hatched. You just sprinkle them around the bottle fly gangland and wait.
Because I have chickens who are notoriously curious and hungry (Norma the chicken once proved this when she lunged at me and ripped a half carat diamond earring out of my earlobe), I did my best to hide the fly parasites when I sprinkled them. I put them under the poop board and behind boxes in the run and anywhere I could find that they'd be protected until they emerged. Fly parasites are incredibly effective killing machines, but they can't do much of anything if they're in your chicken's gizzard.
I sprinkled them around the edge of the coop ...
... on their ladder steps ...
... under their poop board.
Just days after I added the fly parasites to my coop area it got REALLY hot here in Southern Ontario. Crazy hot. Idris Elba hot. Which happens to be the preferred weather condition of bottle flies. Normally when it heats up bottle flies seem to multiply within minutes, covering everything in sight with their bottle fly rave dance party. I hate them.
But this year when the weather heated up there wasn't a fly to be found. Well, there were a couple but not many.
Conclusion? Fly Parasites seem like something out of science fiction. And they are. And that's probably why they work. It's nature versus nature just like on an episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. And like that tv show I gave nature a little bit of a hand, by bringing the fly parasites in myself. I basically let nature take it's course, I just made sure there was a fair fight.
I'm still going to make my old fashioned fly trap, because I still want to trap the few flies that escape the fly parasites. It's always good to use at least 2 methods when you want to protect yourself. Any well seasoned lady of the evening will tell you the same thing.
I'll keep getting delivery of these fly parasites every 3 weeks throughout the summer and that should keep the bottle fly population quieted down quite a bit. I'm encouraging my supplier to come up with a 15 year old boy parasite to quieten them down but so far no luck.
Like, I'm not even, like, sure a, like, 15 year old girl would, like, do the trick.
Brenda
Great fly getting rid of trick ... here's mine. If you get a house fly in your house - wait until dark and turn out all your lights and turn on the porch light and open the door - it will fly outside and save you hours of chasing it around inside the house with a rolled up magazine you need to throw out if you do somehow get it. It seriously works.
Karen
I did that in reverse at a hotel once. Opened my patio door at night, turned the bedside light on then left the room for dinner. Midway through dinner I screamed and realized what I'd done and ran back to the room which was now thick with bugs. I ended up taking the bedside lamp outside onto the patio and they all eventually followed it outside, lol. It was GROSS. ~ karen!
brenda
flies are awful
I have those spontaneously combusting fruitflies already
pour a glass of wine and BOoM - they are born pregnant
Miriam Mc Nally
Wow!
I am so impressed. I don't have chickens, hens, or bottle flies, but this is brilliant!
You should get a partnership from the wasp company!
Nature Vs nature is the way to go!
Lavada
What about plants -- basil, rosemary, lemon grass are all planted around my patio area and then a row of lavender. At the back door I have a citronella plant. I rarely see flies when I'm on the patio and not for long if I do see them. And, as an added bonus, never get bitten by mosquitoes. Natural, fragrant, and herbs are useful (and handy) when cooking out.
Karen
I'm afraid the only plant that would work in a livestock situation (or any situation where there's likely to be bottle flies) would be a hedge of Venus Flytraps. ;) ~ karen!
Catherine
I don't have livestock but I do order ladybirds to have at the aphids. This year with our English 'summer' (cold, rain, gloom), the pests are thriving. And this being my first year growing veggies I want to nurture and protect them as much as possible!
Marna
Interesting! I will have to keep the info on hand for what you mentioned and others mentioned too. We have about every type of wasp living near and around our yard, they are awful all summer. Maybe I already have them, we don't seem to get too many flies, so maybe we do have them. We do have tons of mosquitoes though, thanks for the tip on using a fan. My main problem is they are everywhere all day long now, can't even do much gardening, and now they say we have the Zika mosquitoes here now. We have several different types including the West Nile and some other one I can't remember. I need a pet bat. :)
Suzanne
Have you tried Picadarin? Best mosquito bite preventer ever. Made from peppers. DON'T get in your eyes! Better than OFF by far. Can be hard to find. I get it from Amazon. Even works on noseeums. Little nasties.
Stephanie
THANK YOU for this post! I've been wanting to try these for five years. I'm now convinced after hearing your first-hand actually "doing stuff" report. Thx!
Elaine
You are FAR from an idiot, I can assure you, Karen!! Fascinating reading. I'm more your mother's age and now live in a condo, therefore, many of your posts don't fit with my life now but they are so darned interesting and informative plus I'm always amazed at what you research and then actually DO (!!) that I could never give up reading your blog!!
Karen
OH, well good, lol! That works out well for both of us . :) ~ karen!
Mark
I had visions of a Bugs Bunny earring when I read how _Norma ripped a half carrot diamond earring out of your earlobe_
No wonder, I thought, Norma was going for the veg.
Then I thought, maybe you meant carat...
(Sorry, couldn't resist :). )
Karen
Uch, I'm an idiot, lol. ~ karen!
Melissa
I still have to remind myself not to drink when reading these! Otherwise, it's a case of "laugh-out-loud-and-out-of-your-nose". Not pretty, I tell you.
Cynna
We've used them for horse barns for years; they help.
Paula
Biological Yes! I am expecting my overnight shipment of nematodes tomorrow because I seem to have a mutant form of flea beetles wreaking havoc on tomatoes (!!! not teeny baby tomato seedlings, but nice, big tomato seedlings), potatoes, and not allowing one single lettuce to survive its infancy this year. Death by nematode! Also, this particular strain is said to love cucumber beetles which must be hatching soon in their evil little underground enclaves. I love this fight by bio stuff! Good luck to you!
Karen
I wish that sort of effort would work at my community garden Paula, but with SO many gardens in such a large place it would be useless. :( I do use nematodes for grubs in my lawn though! ~ karen!
Mary W
I thought nematodes killed the roots of veggies. In FL I used old fashioned strong smelling marigolds between my tomatoes and veggies to kill the nematodes. What don't I know about this? In fact the first year of gardening is usually a bust due to nematodes. Help me understand.
Karen
Hi Mary W! There are different types of nematodes just like there are different types of bees or butterflies. The type you order online or get at your garden centre for slugs etc. are "beneficial nematodes" that don't harm grass or vegetables, they just attack grubs (in my case). :) You can read a bit more about them in this post. ~ karen!
Cheryl Smith-Bell
They work great, and I need to order some, myself. You will not need the full summers worth, because they are reproducing/egg laying in the fly larva case, but only one at a time! It is some times hard for them to outproduce the flies, tho, if you have a lot of live stock.
Karen
Yes, the guy explained to me that they do reproduce but at such a low rate compared to the flies that they need to be replenished. ~ k!
motherhen
Have you tried the 'penny in a ziplock bag filled with water hanging in the coop or run' trick?
Apparently has something to do with their compound eyes, the water filled bag appears magnified and multiplied and acts like a 'flyzilla' to deter them.
Karen
No, I haven't. It's actually been proven to not work at all, and to just be a coincidence or because of other factors if flies go away when you hang the bags, lol. I have readers that say they work but I couldn't be bothered with trying out this sort of witchcraft. ;) I was going straight for the scientifically engineered fly killers. Love 'em! ~ karen!
Cynthia Jones
I wanna know where they go after they have eaten your flies. Are they waiting somewhere in an underground cave or in your basement until next Spring where they will emerge and eat your brains? Yeh right, they don't affect humans. Humph! Tell that to the cane toads we imported to kill our cane beetles. Buggers also kill our dogs and scare the bejeebers out of us at night with all their ugly floppin around. You watch out next Spring Karen, I don't want you going down to the cellar to get that artificial leg and getting swarmed like a scene out of Hitchcock's "Birds". And while you're at it, don't run with scissors either.
Julie
Probably couldn't find a penny anyway!
MDR
Damm. Anything for mosquitoes?
Karen
A fan! A regular fan set out where you're sitting will get rid of mosquitoes because they can't fly in even a slight breeze. Most effective mosquito repellant around. ~ karen!
Mel Robicheau
Ohhh good to know. Bats and dragonflies eat tons of mosquitoes too!
Audrey
A Fan? You've obviously never been to Manitoba during a mosquito outbreak, Karen.
Nancy S
I think it's douchey. And this was one of the grossest/most fascinating things I've read in a long time.
Christy
I did the same by purchasing nematodes to devour the fungus gnat larva that were killing my seedlings. Totally worked.... no pesticide
Not sure about the 15 year-old girls in Canada, but you have to inject "literally" and "amazing" a few hundred times in New Jersey to capture the essence here..
Nancy W
Oh, and I'm adding those to my order of that coconut husk dirt stuff...
dede
I'm first!!! I'm never first at anything.
Genius solution. Screw those little buggers. ?
dede
Wow! I'm so disappointed. How fast did those 2 type? Sheesh. ?
Karen
Sorry Dede! They were only 3 minutes ahead of you though. Better luck Friday! ;) ~ karen!
Nancy W
That post went SO well with my dinner. Mmmmm...
Katie Schneider
HOLY SHIT! (do you see what i did there? Maybe it should read holy shit-eaters) This is exactly what i needed! Ordering some now!