What are these and how do I get rid of them. They don’t bite, and are tiny, kinda like gnats but I think even smaller. They are a nuisance swarming around the legs of my horses by the hundreds. I used a pyrethin spray that also has skin so soft and they don’t seem phased by it. They are still there. I have a run-in shed and they are swarming around every pile of manure. I researched the intenet and still haven’t found the answer. I usually use a hose sprayer hooked up to a quart bottle filled with a pyrethrin and skin so soft… Thank you.
fungus gnats? I use fly spray and it works. I think they are called fungus gnats.
Then you have flies breeding in manure also. But the little ones are some kind of gnat, I think.
Definitely fungus gnats. And yep permethrin does kill them on contact – but I wouldn’t waste my $$ fly spray on them – buy concentrated permethrin and dilute it with water in spray bottle as per directions and use for everywhere but on your horse: walls, manure, manure baskets, run-in shed, etc.
If they are what I am thinking — I call them “poo flies” and I love them because they eat manure and keep my pastures much cleaner than they are in winter. I do not have trouble with them because they stay in their place and provide a much-desired service. I thoroughly muck my stalls and run in sheds every day, so there are no flies near them.
I don’t mean to be rude, but it is true that they hover around manure; if yours are around your horses’ legs, could it be that the horses are standing in, on or near
manure?
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Agree; I wouldn’t waste my money spraying them or spraying my whole barn/barnyard with permethrin. Just remove the manure thoroughly and frequently and you remove the problem. Obviously there are times when they are there; and my horses tend to poop in the same areas of the pasture so maybe there are more hovering in that area - but the horses poop and leave, so the flies don’t bother them.
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I clean my sheds + stalls with muck baskets then cart them to an area where I pick them up/dump them in my tractor front end loader – and off to the manure pile I go. If I wait too long the fungo gnats are swarming the poo in the baskets – and look out :eek: – it’s easy to get a mouthful of them when I forget they’re in there and disturb the baskets/dump them. It’s like a black haze of the little buggers.
I never kill them either – read somewhere they do perform a ‘service’. It’s the regular flies I’m after with my permethrin spray.
I don’t know their technical name, but I also call them “poo flies” 
They do an amazing job breaking down manure.
I actually took pictures
Roughly 24 hours between the 2 pictures
Before:
https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/984120_10202306838168933_3004570724756853582_n.jpg?oh=ecb2d004e18c74b4e37c0ba17ff133af&oe=5A0DE22B
The pile sort of “melted”.
Fascinating! I thought the disaapearing manure was sparrows going after oats or possibly giant banana slugs which swarm.fresh manure overnight on the trails. We definitely have poo gnats though most visible in certain light conditions.
this year I have been adding Simplifly to the horse’s feed once a day… I have noticed a great reduction in actual flies and none of the small swarms around fresh manure in the paddocks
So I had to go look - yes, fungus gnats. Good guys, don’t want to be killing them! Not around the manure anyway, they do good work and don’t harm anyone.
In the house? Yeah, don’t attract them.
