My horses and I are going fly crazy. Currently, the overhead fly spray system is running every 3 hours for one minute. Flies are still terrible. Stalls are picked all day and horses are covered in Endure fly spray regularly.
Do others run their system more frequently?
Not my barn, but a place I used to board ran their system every hour. I don’t think it sprayed for a full minute though, that seems like a long time. I want to say it was more like 15 seconds every hour. The manure pile was directly behind the barn (poor planning) and yet when the system was on the flies were pretty much nonexistent in the barn.
I boarded at a barn with a system awhile ago. It ran every hour for maybe 10-15 seconds. A full minute is a ton of spray! 😮
We used ours a couple of times an hour for a short duration,m which I think is a far better use of your fly spray.
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When our system was installed they told us that its better to run the system more frequently, that there are diminishing returns from running it longer at any given time. So I’d try running it more frequently for 15-20 seconds at a time.
Thanks! We’ll give it a shot.
We run it longer because we have a typical Florida barn and there’s a lot of air flow. It’s always blowing somewhere.
have you tried fly predators? Cut my fly numbers down dramatically. The one spring I forgot to order them the flies were awful again.
I run mine every 3 hours for 45 seconds. If there are flies in the barn, I increase the frequency. I have a 55 gallon drum and can usually squeak two years out of one Pyranha refill but this year (due to no real winter) I had to add a fresh batch. You might want to check the nozzles to make sure they are all working and that the filter in the drum is clean.
That seems like a lot. Maybe consider swapping the formula? Shoo-fly recommended this when I had a system. Worked great, nary a fly with three times a day for 30 seconds, but in PA. I think we switched up every three years?
I broke something on mine so I can’t reset the frequency or duration. So it goes off 6 times a day for a minute. Right now as hot and humid as the weather is that is about right. The horses are out overnight so sometimes I unplug it overnight. Last year it was so warm that I was still running it in December and had to start back up in March of this year. It does a pretty good job keeping the flies down. When the drum runs low and it doesn’t come on I can really tell how much it is helping. I don’t like fighting the flies when I am down at the barn sweating cleaning stalls. The horses are happier with it too.
I tried fly predators for two years before I bought this system. They didn’t help very much. Probably because it is so humid down here and I have gnats and mosquitoes besides flies. Some people have success with them but not me.
6:30 am 9:30 12:30 3:30 6:30 9:30
so 6x 3 hours apart but not 9:30pm to 6:30 am
We are on 30 min intervals for 30 seconds per run. Flys are still bad. Stalls cleaned at minimum 3 - 4 times per day. No manure stored on site. So frustrating.
So far, the every hour for 20 seconds hasn’t put a dent in my fly population. It’s running around the clock. I go through about 55 gallons of spray per month. I think I need to use a different type. Any recommendations?
All of my sprayer heads are working very well. It’s a 10 stall barn with one sprayer per stall as well as 3 in the aisle.
My manure pile is many hundreds of feet away from my barn.
I dumped lunch grain in one feeder today and a cloud of flies emerged. Disgusting.
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I am confused, did you expect the fly predators to do something other than what they are designed to do?
We have plenty of humidity, mosquitoes, and gnats here too. Fly predators did a great job on flies. They do nothing for gnats and mosquitoes, one has to use other tools for those.
The nice thing about the fly predators is they reduce the fly population outside too, not just in the building where your current spray system is.
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I have had a lot of luck when on Florida w these star bar traps placed over a bucket of water gross but I caught thousands w four of these [ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“title”:“8180F6E3-81D0-4AB9-84E7-B34948EC77EB.jpeg”,“data-attachmentid”:10692075}[/ATTACH]
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I’ve had huge luck with mosquito dunks in all water sources. You can also spray mosquito dunk “tea” where flies are breeding.
Thread about it here: https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/forum/discussion-forums/around-the-farm/10672957-update-post-9-mosquito-dunks-flies-help-me-remember
It’s cheap and easy and there’s no problem trying this while still using fly spray around the clock. (Unlike fly predators, all that spray in the bedding will just poison them in the manure pile.)
exactly!!!
With this big a fly problem, you have something wrong in your management practices.
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I am in hot humid NC. I have a couple of fly’s if I look hard. My guess is that the ratio of water to the chemical is off. Likely too diluted. Add more chemical. Or start over, ensuring the ratio is correct. To get on top of the fly population, try shutting all outside doors, than run the system for 45sec, wait 45 min., do again.
FYI, used to board at a 100 stall barn with fly spray system. Not a single fly to behold!
I would try a different chemical (or different percentage solution, if there is any possibility it is too diluted.) I run my system for 45 sec every two hours - set by the professional that installed my Shoo Fly system - and have almost no flying insects at all.
Also make sure that feed tubs, buckets, etc are all kept scrubbed and clean. Once a week we also scrub pretty much the entire place down with PineSol - muck tubs, pitchforks, shovels, mats etc.
