Fly traps offer a physical method of controlling insects on the farm alongside pesticide treatments. Fly traps have many advantages, as they work 24/7 and are often a simple and economical way to control insects.
What Are Fly Traps?
Fly traps use an attractive and innovative bait - or another lure type - to entrap the flies.
Options range from simple to complex. It’s as straightforward as the homemade jam jar method - with sugary water inside and a plastic film top with holes poked through. The sweet water attracts the flies, and they become trapped inside the jar.
However, it’s often necessary on a farm to step up insect control due to the sheer volume of flies attracted by livestock and poultry. There are different options depending on the scale of the problem, the species, and the location.
Types of Fly Trap Products
Sticky Fly Traps
Sticky fly traps work well inside buildings and in sheltered outdoor areas. They have a long-lasting adhesive coating that is usually yellow to attract pesky insects. Some brands offer a surface impregnated with a substance attractive to flies.
For their size, sticky strips offer a huge catch area - but they do have their limits.
Electric Fly Traps
Electric fly traps are perfect for the farm environment, with an aesthetically pleasing design that is more agreeable than sticky traps. They're suitable for commercial areas like a dairy, farm shop, or adjacent tearoom with customers.
Electrocution kills the flies when they touch the powered grid with a catch tray that is simple and quick to remove. These electric devices can be wall or ceiling mounted and require a constant power supply.
Lasting for around three months, baited fly traps are helpful on farms with public access as they can be discretely located away from customer-facing areas.
UV Light Fly Traps
UV or blue light is attractive to flies, and these electrically-powered devices draw flies to the product before either electrocuting them with a high-voltage grid or trapping them on a sticky glue board.
How To Control Flies on the Farm?
Physical control methods like sticky or baited traps or electric killers are insufficient on a commercial livestock or poultry unit to effectively control the vast volume of insects throughout the season.
Insecticides sprayed with a long-lasting residual action, cold fogging, or other methods like smoke bombs are necessary to control breeding populations.
These should be the mainstay of your fly control programme, alongside practical husbandry and good farm design for keeping poultry healthy. Physical traps are a recommended bonus.
Fly control programmes are year-round, not just in the warmer months between April and October.
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