When you think about living a completely sufficient off grid life your head is probably filled with ideas like growing a massive garden, raising animals, running a farm or working on off grid power projects. Exciting right! But what about the less glamorous projects like cleaning out chicken coops or starting a composting pile? Animals, property and heat don’t mix well when it comes to keeping control of fly populations. Whether you are raising meat chickens or cleaning just cleaning out your chicken coop for the very first time, one off the worst parts is dealing with the flies. Flies love to lay eggs in feces which is just one of the many reasons they love your animals.
The problem is that flies carry loads of diseases like salmonella, anthrax and tuberculosis to just name a few. House flies have also been known to transmit the eggs of parasitic worms, disgusting!
So how do you get rid of flies on your property? The first thing you need to know is that is possible, but you have to be proactive. Controlling the fly populations on your property is not only doable, but it it’s an essential part of maintaining a clean safe property.
How to get rid of flies on your property depends on what methods you are willing to utilize. Before we breakdown the top three methods it is really important to know that prevention is your best friend. The more frequently you clean pens, corrals, coops and replace stagnant water the better off you will be in the long run. The reality is flies can reproduce faster than you can get rid of them. However that doesn’t mean that all is lost, and utilizing one or like I recommend all three of the following methods will give the best results.
1. DIY Fly Traps: At the core fly traps are super simple. Create a container that has bait inside that attracts flies and makes leaving difficult. Simple funnel traps tend to be the most effective and are insanely easy to make. Our favorite is the two liter bottle trap, it is very inexpensive and is reusable.
A. Take an empty 2 liter soda bottle and cut in half
B. Drill or poke a hole in the cap just large enough for a fly to slip inside.
C. Put bait in the trap (any food scrap will work) Just putting water with a little bit of sugar mixed in it will work well also.
D. Flip the top end of the bottle upside down and point the cap towards the bottom of the trap. The bottle will wedge itself inside.
E. Lastly poke a hole through both layers on the top on each side and tie a simple string to it and hang it up in your yard out of site.
Flies will swarm the trap and after a week or so depending on how many flies you have on your property it will be full. You can either throw the whole thing away or dump the dead flies out and use it again if you would like.
2. Chemical Sprays: Before you freak out there are a host of high quality human, animal and plant safe chemicals that are extremely effective at killing flies and their eggs. We recommend buying in bulk off and mixing the chemical at home then applying as directed with a pressurized sprayer. We always advocate for using what you have on hand or borrowing from a friend. If you have to pick up a sprayer your local home improvement or farm supply store will have one. Go for the manual pump pressure canister, they last forever and work well. Spray in and around areas where flies are likely to gather to reproduce and lay eggs. Spraying these areas is crucial because not only will it kill flies looking to lay eggs, but even if they are successful once the larvae are born they immediately start to consume the organic material they were laid on, giving you another solid chance to kill them before they are able to grow, reproduce and lay their own eggs.
3. Commercial Fly Traps: If you are looking for a simple plug and play option that will allow you to focus on bigger projects and can be used over and over again, then picking up a commercial fly trap is for you. There are literally thousands of options out there in the marketplace. We can’t break them all down but here are our top three favorites.
Resque FTD Disposable Trap:
These have thousands of great reviews on amazon. They are highly effective, can last months depending on how many flies your property has and are super simple to use, all you have to do is hang it up where you want and it will do all the work.
The Victor Fly Magnet:
The Victor Fly Magnet is one of the most most effective easy to use fly traps you can buy. It is easy to setup and has several thousand positive reviews on Amazon. What we like most about the Fly Magnet is that the trap comes in multiple sizes all the way up to 1 gallon which is ideal for farm and off grid life. The trap comes with an easy to use hanging hook that attaches to a lid that unscrews. When the trap is full unscrew the cap and dump the content out. Rinse and then repeat, you can get years of use out of one trap.
Fly Be Gone:
There are a lot of great things about the fly be gone that make it great but it’s best feature is that for under $15 you can buy a trap that can catch over 20,000 flies. Just unpack the trap and hang it wherever you would like. When you are done just toss it in the trash. We suggest buying the 5 pack for extra savings and should last you for years depending on your fly situation.
Attacking flies with any of the above approaches will make a huge impact on how many flies you have on your property and how big of a pest they are. Employing all three methods consistently throughout the warmest parts of the year is essential to success. Don’t let the little things keep you from reaching your dream of a sustainable life, utilize the methods mentioned in this post to combat disease carrying flies in an effective sustainable fashion. Have your own method for fly control on your property? Share what you do in the comments below!