Sooo much pooping

[Luvachicken]

I was lucky enough to be on holiday the last 2 weeks in Guernsey and Jersey and just before I left bought a fly trap with bait. It wasn't that full of flies when I left but it was full when I looked this morning, not only did it have flies in it also had loads of maggots - which were cleverer than the flies- and found the escape holes

Hubby kindly emptied it for me and I put in new fly bait - does it not really last for 3mths as the packaging says or did I have too many flies ?

The fly bait smells worse than the chickens and every puff off wind brings a waft of any ideas how I can make things smell a bit nicer ?

[Mollie333]

Citronella candels will get rid of the flys without the smell.

[Luvachicken]

where would i put the candles during the day so my dog and the chickens would be safe ?

I do have trellis I could hang them from.

[figarogir1]

I am having similar problems with my fly trap it is only two weeks old and smells awful OH is moaning as much about that as he is about the flies I just can't win

[Mollie333]

I used to burn the candels untill they went out away from any bushes ect with my chickens running around and my cats just ignored it.

[Lewis]

You can get citronella oil

I pour some on a teracotta pot so it soaks it up, then when the sun heats it up the smell comes out

[TAJ]

They do smell awful, but that is how they attract the flies. It does tell you to put it away from where you have flies to attract them elsewhere (then trap them), so I put it away from the hens so we do not smell it. We have had maggots on occaisions, but not many and certainly not escaping - how much water did you start it off with? usually you only start about half full and only as it fills up with flies do you start topping up the water - I guess if there is too much water maggots could climb out the top.

 

Good luck,

 

 

Tracy

[Bramble]

Sorry to be dim, but is this a fly trap in your chicken run/coop/eglu? Oh dear, is that necessary, it's not something I'd thought of?

[Bertrum]

The thing about fly traps is that the 'bait' is actually an attractant. They may be adding to your fly problem rather than dealing with it.

 

Bramble, you certainly DO NOT want it IN your run. The idea is that you put it a good distance from where you and your hens are and it attracts the flies away from you. Clearly it will attract all the flies from all around though, so you will get everyone else's flies as well.

[beach chick]

omigod, it sounds best left alone!! I like Lewis' tip about citronella oil on the terracotta pot. or I think someone puts a sheet of kitchen roll with citronella underneath their sun shade... I'm sure its someone here.

[Snoxy]

so glad i read this post...i am off to move my fly trap

[gargan]

So, does the Citronella oil or candle really help with the flies? We have millions of them in the garden and it's beginning to be a real problem.

[CatieB]

I keep a water spray with a few drops of citronella oil in it and spray the house, area and bedding. You will be amazed how far a few drops go and the smell is there and pleasant. A tip from someone else on here. Thanks

 

Seems to work for us and we live in the middle of a field so are surrounded by flies

[gargan]

Gargan ordered his first bottle of Citronella oil this morning.

[legend21]

I agree it smells but it is so great for keeping flies away from girlies, same situation came back from holidays to a full trap, but the girls are fly free, have put up a new trap, Im lucky and have a big garden which means trap is far away from house and away from chicken run

[Luvachicken]

Just caught up with all the replies - thankyou.

My garden is only 30 ft by 40 ft and faces North so I don't have many options of where to hang it in the sun - no where is really far from the house . But I did find an old lemon and lime Yankee candle that no one really likes the smell of and I lit that yesterday and that did seem to keep the flies out of their run area and the rest went in the trap.

I'll certainly try the citronella oil on the terracotta dishes though.

[Mercedes55]

I check my fly trap every day and as I've only had it up for a couple of weeks I had expected it to last for ages. However this morning when I looked it had loads of maggots in it. Mine is hung up in a tree so I can't really get up there to see if they are crawling out, but it is kind of gross just thinking about it. I put exactly the right amount of water in the fly trap and it's not near the run, but I am still getting tons of flies in the run too, so hasn't exactly sorted the problem out

[sarahjw]

EWWW!

I have just ordered a fly trap, beginning to wonder if that was a good idea??

We have stacks of flies at the mo, I'm off up the garden centre to buy up their stock of citronella

[Mercedes55]

EWWW!

I have just ordered a fly trap, beginning to wonder if that was a good idea??

We have stacks of flies at the mo, I'm off up the garden centre to buy up their stock of citronella

 

We took ours down over the weekend and what a nightmare that was. It was so smelly we had to find a big tin to put it in and then we put that in a bin liner and tied it up really well and left it down the side of the house till the bins were due to be emptied. When we picked it up to put it in the bin the maggots had crawled out of the tin into the bin liner and it just looked and smelt gross. I haven't noticed any more flies since taking it down and I do wonder if they are worth having

[brambles]

Oh my word I have an almost twin up there - and fly papers in my run!

[Bertrum]

I do wonder if they are worth having

 

I'll be honest, I've never tried one, but during the first week of chicken ownership I investigated getting one. There seemed to be a LOT of flies and I thought if they kept coming this would be a problem. I read up on the traps and decided that the last thing I wanted to do was attract more, so left it. After a few days the numbers of flies dropped significantly, until I would not say we have any more now that before the hens came. I tried a citronella squirt thing for a day or two, but have since given up on that as well since there really seemed to be no need.

 

1. There are several possibilities:
   
2. The hens attract more flies, but then a balance is reached where numbers are kept in check
   
3. The weather recently was abnormally good for flies and has since returned to normal
   
4. The hens themselves have begun to control the fly numbers somewhat
   
5. There is something even more attractive than hen poo nearby and the flies are all on that
   

I suspect a combination of the first three is most likely, but just in case, I'm not about to put any more fly attractants in my garden for now.

[Calamity Jane]

As I have only had my girlies 5 days, this is all still so new to me. There do seem to be a lot of flies around the poo on the grass in their run but they are having a great time chasing them. Is it ok for them to eat flies ?

[Valkyrie]

There seems to be a lot of flies around this year anyway - due to the nice weather possibly. The strangest thing is there are loads of them hanging round the front door where the chickens have never been. Bleh! Jeyes Fluid granules to be sprinkled there methinks. Shame I can't do it out the back. So far we have 5 fly traps set up (I have been doing it in a rotation order and I think the first 2 have pretty much had it. Since I put the last one up behind the greenhouse we don't seem to have had so many - but then the weather's changed. I think where the instructions say up to 3 months it does indeed depend on how many flies there are around. I also have a fairly big garden so all the traps are not on top of each other and spaced at fair distances. Only 2 have ponged though.

[BarbaraJ]

Hmm i'm unsure whether to keep mine up now, i had one for 4-6 weeks , the type in a milk carton and that was full to top with flies. I can only keep mine about 6' from chicken run so do get alot of flies, though there have been SO many this year. I don't get a smell but lots of flies so don't know whether i would get less without the trap or more am sending hubby to look in the garden for a terracotta pot tomorrow

[Mercedes55]

I totally forgot about the terracotta pot. I was in John Lewis last night looking for an egg basket, which they don't seem to sell, and saw bottles of the citronella oil there. I knew there was a reason I should get some but I just couldn't remember where I was supposed to put it, so I didn't get it, now I wish I had as I've got tons of terracotta pots