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Hay Talk: Controlling Pasture Flies

by titanoutlet on May 16, 2012

A stressed animal isn’t going to perform the way you need it to. You want what’s best for your livestock. It’s only natural.

An example of a cattle eartag with insecticides to protect your herd.

Flies can be a major stress on cattle. Flies are becoming resistant to the pesticides that have been around for a while, but there’s still hope for you keeping the sanity of your herd.

According to Farm and Ranch Guide, you gotta scout:

“It all begins with scouting The first step is doing a little scouting to see which insects are bothering the herd, much like a grain farmer will scout his field for problem weeds, insects and diseases. Moon divided the summer insect pests that affect cattle into two main groups – aquatic biting insects and another group he termed ‘filth flies’. The aquatic biting insects include mosquitoes, horse flies, black flies and biting gnats. These insects originate from wetland areas such as swamps, sloughs and streams, and there isn’t really much that can be done about them except to eliminate those wet areas from which they originate.

The ‘filth flies’ group is subdivided into two segments – stable and house flies that originate from organic debris where animals congregate, such as feed yards and calving areas. The other group includes face and horn flies, which hatch from the cow dung pats in the pasture. Since cattle on summer range or pasture are more likely to be impacted by those flies hatching from the manure pats, this will be the main emphasis of this article.

There are a lot of those dung piles distributed each day as, on average, a cow defecates every two hours, Moon said. Each of those fresh patties is a prime location for the horn and face fly adults to lay their eggs to start a new generation of flies. Of the two species that are hatching in the cow patties, Moon said cattle producers should be most concerned with the horn flies, since it doesn’t take much of an insect load to cause at least a 5 percent reduction in efficiency. On the other hand, research hasn’t been able to prove there is a significant loss in production due to face flies.

In the past, insecticidal dusts and ear tags did a fairly good job of keeping these numbers down in the pasture, but the insects have developed resistance to many of these chemicals causing producers to look at biological and other methods of control.”

Dung beetles are another great source of help with fly control on the farm. There are a few different types of dung beetle, each doing their part to prevent flies.

Another method is a mechanical fly trap chute:

“Mechanical fly trap Producers may also want to consider employing a ‘walk-thru’ fly trap in their pasture insect management system. Probably the most effective is known as the ‘Bruce’ walk-thru trap. This device, when placed in an area that cattle must pass through, can reduce horn fly numbers by 50 to 70 percent when beef cattle walk through the trap once or twice a day according to research done in Missouri. Moon suggested locating the trap in a path the cattle must take to get to water, such as a dugout or water tank, and fencing the water area in a way that all cattle must pass through the trap to get to the water.”

There’s plenty to do to help your cattle with their fly problem. Click here to read the rest of the story at Farm and Ranch Guide.

-Al Winmill, Titan Outlet Store Team

 

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