15 Tips to Reduce FLIES Around the Chicken Coop

15 Tips to Reduce FLIES Around the Chicken Coop

15 Tips to Reduce FLIES Around the Chicken Coop

by

Kathy Shea Mormino

When keeping chickens or other animals,
flies are an expected nuisance, but there are steps that can be taken to
reduce the overall fly population, thereby limiting the risks of disease
they carry. Flies thrive in warm, moist, "fragrant" environments and
different types of flies require different elimination tactics, making a
multi-pronged strategy necessary. So...let's roll one out!

1. Remove the Poop: Promptly remove nightly droppings from the chicken coop. A droppings board
is the best solution to this stinky fly attractant and it takes less
than a minute daily to scrape it down & add the manure to the
compost pile.

2. Sand for the Driest Coop Possible: Use sand as chicken coop litter and run ground cover. Sand coats droppings and dries them out, reducing odors and moisture simultaneously.

3. Plant Warfare: 

• Plant herbs around your coop and yard. Basil, lavender, mint and rosemary are all natural fly repellents.
• Grow some carniverous plants that eat flies. 

4. Spice it Up: Herb it up is closer to the point: add herbs to your chicken coop- fresh or dried. I make Spruce the Coop Herbal Fusion comprised of many insect-repellent herbs and sprinkle it in the nest boxes and coop.

I put fresh stalks of rosemary inside my chicken coop during the growing season.

5. Clean Up After Snack Time: When giving chickens sweet treats, especially when trying to help them beat the summer heat, don't leave sticky, sweet remnants behind that will attract flies. Clean up the rinds & compost them.

6. Keep it Dry: Eliminate stagnant, warm, pooling water, which serves as breeding grounds for flies. Install drainage where necessary.

7. Employ Insects:  Fly Predators are
tiny, non-stinging wasps that eat fly larva so they have no chance of
hatching & becoming adult pests. The challenge with Fly Predators is
that chickens love eating them, so they must be strategically placed. 

8. Compost manure vertically
instead of horizontally in a wide pile. This increases the compost
temperature, expedites decomposition and minimizes the amount of surface
area exposed and fly-attracting odors.

9. Dial up Compost Temperature:
Cover compost with black plastic sheeting to increase the temperature
inside the pile. Flies like it warm, not hot. Turning the pile also
keeps the pile cooking because the process requires oxygen.

10. Keep It Moving: Install fans to promote airflow inside the coop. It's tough to fly with a lot of air turbulence.

11. Move Compost Pile: Locate compost pile as far away from the chicken coop and yard as practical. 

12. Eliminate Dirty, Wet Hay: Either compost soiled hay or spread it out on the ground on a sunny day to dry it out (moisture+ smell=fly attractant).

13.  Vanilla scented air fresheners. Some chicken-keepers swear by them. Read more about using them them here.

14. Fly traps. Each type of
physical fly trap has its drawbacks: some are stinky, nasty to look at
and some are costly, but most are effective to varying degrees.

• The type of inexpensive, disposable trap shown below should be hung no higher than four feet from the ground. They're stinky, but they work. 

• The Epps Biting Fly Trap attracts
  flies that bonk into the unit, fall into soapy water and drown. My
  neighbor has been using hers for years and can't say enough good things
  about it. A visit to her chickens and horses is remarkably fly-free. You
  can see my neighbor's Epps unit in this photo behind Scooby, the white
  horse enjoying a dust bath. 

15. Biological Warfare: Use an all-natural, organic, live enzyme purifying/cleaning solution such as Farm 360
to expedite the decomposition of organic waste. By breaking down
organic waste, odor-causing compounds are eliminated, ammonia is
neutralized and the coop and yard are healthier for chickens to live in
without those pesky flies around.