How do you control flies in your chicken coop? You can eliminate flies from your chicken coop by using fly predators, applying diatomaceous earth, maintaining cleanliness, among others.
One thing I fear the most is waking up to an infestation of flies right inside my chicken coop. Their sight alone is incredibly frustrating and enough to turn your stomach. That’s why you need to find ways to get rid of them.
Flies come in different sizes, colors, and species and are all referred to as ‘flies.’ They are a nuisance to both humans and animals. They spread diseases such as typhoid, cholera, yellow fever, and polio. Also, they are hosts to many pathogens that cause diseases like tuberculosis salmonella Lyme’s disease and many more.
Why You Should Control Flies in Your Chicken Coop
Flies transmit diseases in many different ways. Some bite their victims, causing the transmission of diseases through their saliva. This is because they eat anything that’s decaying, whether it is feces, vomit, carcass, or rotting food. These decomposing materials are the primary source of disease-causing bacteria.
Most flies are pesky, abundant, and stubborn. After they invade your chicken coop, they quickly establish their colony there and become almost impossible to control.
In particular, outdoor flies are drawn to livestock, especially chickens. They find your chickens to be a resourceful host for a good reason. Your chickens’ droppings and leftover foods provide outdoor flies with a safe environment to multiply.
If you don’t exterminate them at the right time, they may get out of control and render the chicken coop inhabitable.
Strategies to Control Flies in Your Chicken Coop
1. Keep Your Chicken Coop Clean
Cleanliness is the first strategy that you should apply if you want to get rid of flies in the chicken coop. Remove all droppings left behind by your birds. This is because Chicken droppings are responsible for attracting flies.
After removing droppings from the floor, you should also clean every other section of the coop. Clean and sanitize waterers, feeders, nesting boxes, and roosts. Look around to make sure that everything inside the coop is clean.
Don’t forget to remove any garbage outside the coop. Heaps of garbage around your chicken coop are likely to attract flies and other insects.
Ensure that both the inside and outside your chicken coop is clean and dry throughout. To achieve this goal, you must clean out the entire coop daily or after a few days.
Besides routine cleaning and freshening of the coop, you should also consider adding fresh bedding regularly. Older bedding may start to smell and attract flies to where your chickens spend most of their time.
Sprinkling diatomaceous earth to the bedding can reduce foul smell within the coop. Without a bad smell inside your chicken’s coop, you can rest assured that flies will not find their way in.
2. Install Fly Strips
Another easy way to control flies in your chicken coop is the use of fly strips. Fly strips are commonly used in different households to trap flies within minutes. Instead of installing them in your house, you can just place them inside the coop to catch flies.
However, this method comes with one major limitation; it only works best when you have few chickens. If you have many chickens, the fly strips will not be able to control the number of flies.
Even though they are effective in trapping flies, fly strips cannot take the place of your clean, dry chicken coop. Therefore, you can only use them as part of your overall pest control strategy.
3. Use Fly Predators
Fly predators are also effective when it comes to controlling flies in the chicken coop. This strategy requires you to use live insects to contain the situation. The insects feed on larvae in a bid to interrupt the life cycle of flies.
You only need to use fly predators at least once a month for better results. You can obtain them cheaply from poultry stores around you, although their benefits are way beyond their overall cost. The only limitation of fly predators is that you cannot use them near large dairy farms or places where fly control is not allowed.
4. Consistent Airflow Around the Coop
Proper and adequate ventilation is a must-have if you want your chickens to be comfortable in their coop. Proper ventilation means a steady flow of air in and around the coop. This strategy will help reduce the fly population around your chickens.
To ensure that there is consistency in ventilation, you must open windows on all sides of the coop. When open, a stiff breeze will circulate inside the coop, keeping flies away from your chicken’s living space.
You can also install a ceiling fan in the run to facilitate air circulation. Or place an outdoor portable fan at a strategic place to blow air toward your chickens’ food dishes. This way, flies will not find a means of landing in those areas.
A fan can also help in circulating air within the coop. This is even better if the chicken coop has electricity. A simple and gentle circulating fan would be better than going for an industrial fan.
5. Planting Herbs Around the Chicken Coop
Some herbs can provide you with a natural remedy for pests. You can grow them around your chicken coop to control flies. Herbs that are natural insect repellants can help you control flies as well.
Examples of such herbs include lemon balm, rosemary, lavender, lemongrass, mint, and catnip. All these plants can deter flies from wreaking havoc around the coop. Just cut them and hang around your coop or fencing to keep away pests.
Apart from repelling flies from the coop, these herbs are also beneficial to your birds. They can serve as snacks for your chickens during the day.
6. Use Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous earth (DE) plays a crucial role in controlling mites and flies around the chicken coop. This natural silica-based fossilized compound can kill most of the hard-shelled insects within a short time.
DE kills flies, fleas, earwigs, silverfish, aphids, millipedes, crickets, and digestive worms. Even though it exterminates a large number of insects, the DE is entirely safe for chickens.
Even Your Chickens Can Control Flies
Your own chickens can offer a permanent solution to the flies’ menace in the coop. You can use them to disrupt the reproduction cycle of flies by letting them feast on larvae.
Once they eliminate the larvae, the fly population will be under control. At the same time, these larvae will serve as a source of food for them.
7. All-Natural Fly Repellant
The use of all-natural repellents should not come to you as a surprise. This strategy can help to get rid of all flies in the coop in an affordable way. So, going all-natural is one of the best options that you can rely on.
You can make your own natural repellents using naturally occurring herbs like mint and calendula essential oils. These two ingredients are capable of repelling insects.
Most importantly, this option limits the exposure of your birds to chemicals when controlling flies. All you need is to formulate and spray the repellent in the chicken coop to keep away flies.
8. Get Rid of Straw
Avoid using straw as bedding material for your birds. Straw is not absorbent, meaning that it will not absorb moisture to keep the coop dry.
Also, straw decomposes quickly when it comes into contact with drinking water and chicken droppings.
Once decomposed, it attracts flies to the chicken coop. If you are using straw in your chicken coop as bedding material, it is time you got rid of it.
9. Make Use of the Tennis Racket-Style Fly Swatter
This option requires you to use a tennis racket-style fly swatter to eliminate flies on contact. The tennis-style racket is usually electrified. When flies or other insects come into contact with it, it releases sparks that kill them instantly.
If you are looking for a fun way to eliminate flies around the coop, this product is perfect for you. You may use it in the coop to get rid of flies or take it with you to the house to control pesky bugs.
Related Questions
Which fly control products should I avoid using in my chicken coop? You should stop using fly ribbons, and fly reel traps in the coop. These two options may wreak havoc to your flock by getting stuck to their feathers.
Why do flies invade my chicken coop? Just like most pests, flies love chicken coops. This is where they get their food and water in abundance. Also, chicken manure and leftover food provide a good ground for them to reproduce and increase in number. These are the reasons why some pests invade chicken coops.
Final Thought
Your chicken coop can attract all kinds of pests if you don’t keep it clean. In particular, a dirty coop provides a safe haven for flies to reproduce. You can control them by cleaning the coop, using fly traps, and planting herbs around their coop, among other methods.
Below is a Pinterest friendly photo…. so you can pin it to your Chicken Board!!
