There is a new feed through product called Simplifly that is supposed to be great. I just bought some yesterday. I also use the predators with varying degrees of success.
Not sure on the DE and how effective it really is.
Always going to be flies, just like there will always be chicken sh*t.
Eventually things that eat flies come, and they eat!
But, you will never be rid of flies. They are there to eat the sh*t. Quite a circle of nature :)
I hear muscovy ducks will eat flies.
DE is effective... very effective but, as Andrea said, it kills the good and the bad. We use it in our house when we get ants and don't want to use anything harmful due to the cat and dogs. Our Chickens dust themselves in it but so far, knock on wood, we haven't had any issues with flies around the chickens. They're always out in the horse poop getting the fly larvae, and we use a safe cedar bedding mixed with bermuda in the chickens pens, so there's not many flies around our place.
I've used it in the past for fly control with horses, sprinkled directly in manure areas. Cal also be used as feed through fly control. I've since switched to fly predators. DE works great, and it won't hurt the animals, but it will hurt beneficial insects. I have an autoship of 5000 fly predators every 3 weeks from now until October. We have 3 horses, 4 dogs, a goat, and 6 chickens. They do a nice job in controlling flies in general. Our neighbors have a bunch of animals too, so I can't imagine what it would be like without them...
One note is if you have chickens only, the fly predators should be released up high because the chickens will eat the pupae if they haven't emerged yet.
I use Spalding for my predators, they are helpful with determining what you need based on your animal collection.
Pam Rawlins > Andrea TrotterMarch 30, 2010 at 1:12pm
Replies
Always going to be flies, just like there will always be chicken sh*t.
Eventually things that eat flies come, and they eat!
But, you will never be rid of flies. They are there to eat the sh*t. Quite a circle of nature :)
I hear muscovy ducks will eat flies.
One note is if you have chickens only, the fly predators should be released up high because the chickens will eat the pupae if they haven't emerged yet.
I use Spalding for my predators, they are helpful with determining what you need based on your animal collection.