Flys in my trays

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Longslides

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I keep my trays as clean as possible. I have an indoor rabbit house. However I still get massive amounts of flys hatching. What is safe to spray in the rabbit house? Or sprinkle on top of the shavings in the trays where the flys are breeding?
 
It needs to be dry for keeping flies away. Lime or scrape out the wet stuff constantly.
 
Do you have fly paper? TSC has a roll that, you can roll back up, when / if you do not need it! Has worked great for me.
$6.99 a roll and it seems to last. Get the adults and they can not lay eggs. Is there any place else (a neighbor's place) that they might actually be breeding and go for your place because of lights? Fly paper, by getting the egg laying adults, will help with that too.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/insect-bai ... ll-2211241
 
I've tried it all, lime, DE, livestock dust, fly paper, fly bait, stink traps, bug zapper, using very little litter in the tray. Still I cannot keep up with the leaking bottles and the moisture.
Livestock dust works very well, but the manure might not be able to go in your veggie garden (if you are using the manure). If not try the dust. I am also going to go get some Neem oil this week.

About the only thing to be done is empty the pans more frequently to break the life cycle.
 
Personally , i would not recommend using seven dust in the trays... it could easily irritate the rabbits breathing.

DE can be useful... again with the breathing caution.

Flies have a three day hatching cycle, i believe. So in theory... if the trays were cleaned every two to three days... it might put a dent in the population. Of course that would mean cleaning up any place on the floor etc that might harbor the nasty critters.

Fly predators really made a huge difference the year we purchased them.
 
Why didn't I think of that? I have chickens! I have a few pet chickens I could put in the rabbit house and see how that works. I like that idea
 
My chickens are totally contained even with a top on their flight area. If you want a laugh....I took a hen and a chair to the rabbit house. I set her down and I plop down in the chair to watch what would happen. Well the hen being in a new area stood still at the door for a few minutes and I swear every rabbit in the barn stomped until I thought they were going to have heart failure over that hen. She was making her "hen noise" which was pretty loud indoors. She stood still for the longest, then very carefully she came to me and jumped up into my lap for protection from all the stomping rabbits!! I think this is going to take some getting use too! On both sides. LOL
 
Longslides":2hoe0x9u said:
My chickens are totally contained even with a top on their flight area. If you want a laugh....I took a hen and a chair to the rabbit house. I set her down and I plop down in the chair to watch what would happen. Well the hen being in a new area stood still at the door for a few minutes and I swear every rabbit in the barn stomped until I thought they were going to have heart failure over that hen. She was making her "hen noise" which was pretty loud indoors. She stood still for the longest, then very carefully she came to me and jumped up into my lap for protection from all the stomping rabbits!! I think this is going to take some getting use too! On both sides. LOL
:rotfl:
Do you have any young chicks, sometimes when they are young they go after insects more and may not be intimidated by the rabbits?
----- :bunnyhop: [ :chicken2: RAbbitttt!] [ :drillsgt: The flys are there!] [What! :chicken: But there be rabbits, there, too!] :bunnyhop:
 
If you have chickens, they can be useful. I don't have them anymore, and when I did, I had big barred rock that could easily fly to roost on the top of the crates. The thought of chicken poop on the floors of my rabbitry makes me cringe.
 
We ordered 'Fly Predators" from Spaulding Labs in CA. They are a very tiny creature that hunts out fly eggs and larvae and lays their eggs on the larvae. It ends up killing the fly larvae and over time will reduce the number born and making more flies. it is not cheap... but imo well worth the cost over a period of time.

Chickens and ducks and guinea hens are also very useful fly predators !
 
Piper":1448jvms said:
:bunnyhop: [ :chicken2: RAbbitttt!] [ :drillsgt: The flys are there!] [What! :chicken: But there be rabbits, there, too!] :bunnyhop:

Oh, Piper! That's too funny!! :rotfl:
 
Random Rabbit":2uzs9q4t said:
We ordered 'Fly Predators" from Spaulding Labs in CA. They are a very tiny creature that hunts out fly eggs and larvae and lays their eggs on the larvae. It ends up killing the fly larvae and over time will reduce the number born and making more flies. it is not cheap... but imo well worth the cost over a period of time.

Chickens and ducks and guinea hens are also very useful fly predators !


How many treatments and how frequently to make it worthwhile? I was considering it this summer, though the thought of buying more insects to kill insects seems strange. I might try it next summer if the neem oil doesn't work, flies have been a big problem here even before the rabbits came.
 
The fly predators are awesome! You need to keep the treatments timely, but they work like crazy.

It seems counter-intuitive to use a bug to get rid of another bug, but I've seen the results firsthand in the horse barns I've visited that use them. They're about the size of the period at the end of this sentence, and you might see one once in a blue moon. They don't bother animals or people, just destroy flies :)
 
I bought some really cheap flypaper in a tube things, you unroll them and stick them up with a thumbtack (which is included). I also encourage (ok, means I just don't kill them) innocuous spiders, as long as their webs aren't right across the doorway. My best anti-fly weapon is my husband, he's wonderful about keeping the trays cleaned out (he does the cat boxes too). The rabbit poop should get easier after the hutches are finished, we're taking a bit from one of the old English tracts, solid metal slant under the rabbits, leading to a wire-bottomed bucket over dirt: pee drains into the ground, poops stay on the wire to be collected as fertilizer :D Now if I can just keep up with the bunny buying bug!<br /><br />__________ Sat Aug 11, 2012 11:18 pm __________<br /><br />Fly predators sound cool - I can see the movie trailer now!
 
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