on the sheath area you can also use just regular Vaseline and a spray. I wouldn’t put it on the face area. Much cheaper than SWAT.
I made my own horsefly trap for very little money! A few sheets of scrap plywood, some mesh like from a screen door, a beach ball, black spray paint, and clear clamshell containers that I get from the grocery store salad bar as needed. I’ll try to find a link to the plans I used or post a pic. It was really very easy and cheap.
It fills up with greenheads and horseflies. Of course there are always more but it’s soooo satisfying to see them trapped in there.
That would be awesome! I’ve been wondering if one could make something similar from scratch AND have it work. Paying $300 + shipping for one of those fancy things is just not in our budget right now.
We have an Epps fly trap that we bought many years ago. It has been rebuilt a few times, even though DH and I have limited DIY skills. You should be able to build one inexpensively and you are welcome to come take a look at mine.
Yes, that’s the one. As you can see it’s expensive, but a reasonably handy person can look at one and construct something along the same lines. Ours is probably twenty years old now.
I had two gigantic horse flies zooming in on Ty a few days ago on the way home from a trail ride. He did a couple of bronc moves when they were harassing his belly and I couldn’t blame him, but it wasn’t fun. They are in So Cal too!
Yeah, $425 + shipping is a wee bit out of our price range. :lol:
But it looks like a few T-posts, with outdoor black tarp-like fabric and two plastic tubs (which I believe are filled with water and dishsoap). I did find a YouTube video of a homemade version (sort of) that was made of wood, a black plastic tub and a sheet of acrylic.
If your two pastures are relatively far apart (one at front of property and one behind the house - about 800 to 1,000 feet apart), do you really need two? or would one in between do okay? If I can get away with just one, that would be preferred!
I am relatively handy building things, so I’m fairly certain I can put together a version of one of these traps having nearly all the items on hand.
If you just have one, put it in the pasture that’s used the most, or better yet, closer to the barn and water trough. You want it someplace where you can easily refill the water trays and scoop out the dead flies. Mine is just across the fence from the water trough, so I have easy access to the hose.
I’m guessing that it needs to be in the sun, since the black “target” needs to heat up for it to work correctly. Water isn’t an issue for us - we use hoses off a main frost free hydrant to carry our water over 1500 feet to the troughs in the pastures… so I have hoses all over the place! lol They work well, that is, when my husband doesn’t run them over with the lawn mower!!!
Well I can’t believe I don’t have a picture of mine and I haven’t put it out for the year yet, but I found a pdf of the instructions that I used. I tried to attach a pic from the instructions but I’m getting an “invalid file” error even though it’s a jpg, grr. The website isn’t up anymore but if you want to PM me your email address I’ll send you a copy! It really was very easy and inexpensive.
In the least creepy way possible, is this what you were looking for? http://thesmallhorsefarm.blogspot.com/2016/07/biting-fly-trap.html
I didn’t realize you had a blog until about 20 minutes ago and may have been binge reading posts since your blog is very timely for us!
