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Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 6/18/2012 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: N/A Technical Abstract: House flies are a health and general annoyance issue for both cattle and humans. Unfortunately dairy farms are endowed with odors and breeding sites which naturally attract house flies, making their control essential for healthy cattle and happy neighbors. Objective: Evaluate the relative effectiveness of three house fly management devices – the Farnam Captivator trap, Quikstrike scatter bait, and Quikstrike bait station. Methods: Three northeast Florida dairy farms were selected, each having three locations known to be highly attractive to flies: calf rearing, feed storage (specifically wet brewers’ grains) and feeding barn. One device was placed at each location of each farm based on a pre-arranged random rotational schedule for 24 hours, then dead flies were counted. Devices were rotated through the other two locations after 24-hour trapping intervals. This constituted 1 of 6 replications of a 3-by-3 Latin square design. Results: When numbers from the three dairies were combined, the Captivator trap captured significantly more flies (avg. 624) than were killed by the scatter bait (138) or the bait strip (95). The location with the greatest number of flies killed at each dairy was the wet brewers’ grains storage area (avg. 2782) versus calf pens (1448) versus feed barns (641). Conclusion: Chemical fly baits and sprays worked well when first introduced, but flies developed resistance to them. This study demonstrates a house fly trap can out-perform baits and gives producers an added reason to reduce use of chemical pesticides for more effective results in ultimately controlling house flies. |
