Pest control

[alpacamom]

What is a good way to keep flies and other bugs away? I don't want to rely on chemicals if I don't have to. A farm we visited a year or two ago had guinea hens and I think they said they were to keep the bug population down. We've also found a LOT of wasp nests around here and they give me the willies, so how do we keep them at bay too? We have talked about having chickens...how helpful are they at keeping pests away?

[moopups]

Ducks are excellent fly catchers.

[danoon]

Get rid of any standing water if possible. We have a bug zapper that does pretty good.
Lowes has a good model for about $30. Granny used to have flypaper all over the house and their cheap.

[Rocky Fields]

Hey.

Now's the time to destroy the wasp nests. They don't fly well when exposed to the cold.

[alpacamom]

Originally Posted by Rocky Fields

Hey.

Now's the time to destroy the wasp nests. They don't fly well when exposed to the cold.

Definitely! The wasp nests are coming down as soon as the water from the power washer won't freeze as it comes out of the nozzle.

[ajaxlucy]

I feed Diatomaceous Earth to my animals (chickens, dogs, sheep) and think it really helps to keep the fly population down. Won't do anything about the wasps, though.

[Tricky Grama]

Most wasps are beneficial & should not be destroyed. They eat so many bad bugs & web worms, etc. If they are near your home you can knock 'em down w/sprays of water.

Patty

[MullersLaneFarm]

We use fly paper in the house and an assortment of poultry in the barn yard. We thought about keeping large fly paper in the barn but are afraid our fan tail pigeons will get caught in them.

There are beneficial wasps that feed on fly larvae - check into them.

Keeping manures well composted goes a long way in keeping down fly population. But realize, where you have manures and grains exposed, you will have flies. It's a part of country living!

[Rocky Fields]

Alpacamom,

You probably wouldn't have anymore problem with flies if you didn't leave coon carcasses scattered allover;-)

I have issues with wasps because they like to bore holes in the fruit I grow in my orchard. They also like to sting first and ask questions later. Give me a good 'ole honeybee anyday. Members of my family are allergic to stings, so I have to keep the wasps away. I have watched wasps going in and out along siding picking off small bugs. Unfortunately for them, they often mistake me for an oversize bug...SPLAT...the rest of the story.

[alpacamom]

ajaxlucy I saw that in my llama products catalog and wondered if it worked well. Thanks for the recommendation.

Tricky Grama There are many wasps nests in the loafing shed and the little shed next to the silo. They give me the heebie jeebies, so maybe we'll get rid of what's there already and if they come back, maybe they were meant to be there?

Cyndi We'll be scoopin' poop quite a bit and thankfully, alpacas have community dung piles, so it shouldn't be too bad. What poultry do you have to help keep bugs down?

RF LOL...spoil my fun...no coon carcasses...geez, whatever would my kids play with? KIDDING As far as I know, none of us is allergic to stinging creatures, but I just don't like 'em. Just them buzzing around makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

[faithgoeson]

Water in Ziploc bags posted on the entrances of a place will keep flies at bay. They think it's a spider web. Weird, but true.
We have wasps in our house now, and it's winter. This terrifies me. My little one got stung in her room just last night. I sealed every hole I could possibly find up in her room, but darn if I know what to do about them. No wasp that stings my babies is a good wasp, I don't care what bugs they eat. They apparently don't eat lady bugs or asian beetles as I certainly have plenty of them around to eat.
We'd love to hear more ideas about the wasps. I know no matter how many nests we knock down, they'll just keep building more. Yuck.

[fishhead]

You can hang a piece of bacon on the edge of a pail filled nearly to the top with water and a few drops of detergent takes care of yellow jackets.

[gobug]

My opinion is a bit different than some of those above. No offense meant to anyone. Long before I became a professional exterminator (for the last 15 years) I studied chemistry in college. The word "non-toxic" is an oxymoron. Toxicity is like temperature in that everything has one. Diatomaceous Earth is good example. If you get a safety data sheet from the seller you will see the warnings about breathing it. Another example is water.

Nothing is non-chemical. Water and air are both made of chemicals. They are both different depending on where you get them. Breathe water and you die. Raise the nitrogen concentration in air from normal of about 70% to about 85% and you will die. Caulking is a chemical and you'll be shocked if you read the safety data sheet.

Any insect problem has unique issues based upon which insect is the problem. There are a lot of varieties of flies. If your problem is a cluster fly, it has nothing to do with the animal waste products. You must seal the exterior shell of the house to prevent them from selecting your house to hibernate. Now is typically the time when cluster flies emerge from inside the walls to inside the living space. They emerge every day whether you use pesticides or not unless you get the pesticide into the space they enter initially. That is not my recommendation. I suggest a vacuum cleaner until they leave in spring, then seal their entry points on the outside of the house.

I suggest you capture a fly and either have a professional identify it, or search the internet to help get it identified. It is critical to know the specific fly if you want an effective solution to the problem. The text book solution to any fly problem has to do with where the fly is reproducing. I would be glad to help identify it if you post a photo. Unfortunately, some flies could require a magnified photo or microscope or power magnifying glass to accurately identify it.

Water in ziplock bags is a myth with zero scientific support. Ultrasonic devices are illegal in some states because they are tested and found to be totally ineffective. If they worked I would have used them myself, rented or sold them as well.

Wasps are beneficial. Most are not very aggressive. Some, like yellow jackets, are so aggressive and located in family gathering spaces that the entire nest needs to be exterminated. The little exposed comb nest wasps are not nearly so aggressive and unless their nest is close to where you frequent it can be left alone. I would never use or recommend the wasp and hornet sprays. I use an aerosol pyrethrin. One single can will kill nearly 50 nests.

Wasps are another good example of the importance of accurately identifying the species before you try to solve the problem. Yellow jacket traps would be a good approach from now until late spring. After late spring they will not solve the problem and the area around the trap will be worse. When mid-summer time happens, trapping or killing food foraging workers will not kill or injure the colony.

Good luck, and please post more detailed information. I would be glad to help out.

[MullersLaneFarm]

Originally Posted by alpacamom

Cyndi We'll be scoopin' poop quite a bit and thankfully, alpacas have community dung piles, so it shouldn't be too bad. What poultry do you have to help keep

We have chickens (meat & egg production), Muscovy ducks, geese, heritage turkeys, pea fowl and guines.

[moonwolf]

indoors I use sticky fly strips for flying insects
vacuum up cluster flies or those invasive asian beetles
outdoors I like to make sure there are natural attractants for swallows, bats, toads, and any insect eating creature that is harmless otherwise.
electric bug zappers

[jordan]

Guinea Fowl are incredible "buggers"! With the proper sized flock for your property (I keep 30 and they work about 10-12 acres of my property) you should see a difference in the amount of ticks, mosquitos, earwigs and other creepy crawlies in the first year, and by the second and 3rd year you will see very few. I hate to even leave the property in the summer anymore because when I visit friends we invariably get chewed up by mosquitos but I can sit on my own porch at sundown without ever being bothered!
Guineas aren't real effective with flies though they will catch some.
They will also go after snakes, mice and their noise discourages moles!
A simply fabulous all-purpose bird! They also have the added benefit of being very amusing to watch!

[tamatik]

I saw on the news, a woman was trying to sell a "new" product.to keep wasps away.All it was ,was a brown paper bag blown up like a balloon and hung beside the wasp nest..Apparently it looks like another wasp nest and they hate company.Mite be worth a try..its cheap/