Flies, Flies, Everywhere Flies

Posted 8 August, 2008 in Alpaca General |

Flies, flies, everywhere flies. This must be the worst year of fly infestation I have seen so far. At times they are all resting in an area on the ground and when you walk by they lift off the ground in a swarm. Unbelieveable.

Tom has purchased a biodegradable spray (pesticide) and it works great. Spray the area and in seconds you can walk by without being swarmed. The bad thing is that it only works for about 20 minutes. It is supposed to be used with a spray system. Unfortunately that is costly and even though the spray itself is a bit expensive we do see it is working. Maybe next year we can spring for the system.

The flies have caused some issues. They love to hang around our alpacas’ eyes. This caused a few of them to have eye infections. Poor Alexis had her entire right side of her face swell up. After I washed it out with saline solution and applied terramycin the swelling immediately started to go down. Within hours her face improved tremendously. However the next day we found her other eye and face beginning to swell. We treated both eyes just to be sure and everything is now clear. Next was Molly. Her face never swelled, but her eye was tearing a lot. We did the same treatment and she is now fine. The last to get hit was Carina. Her eye was tearing with a yellowish discharge. We had to treat her two times a day for about 3-4 days. She is now fine as well.

I have decided to take on a new defense against the flies. I have started to feed the birds in the hopes that I will attract insectivores. To date I have a pair of barn swallows who have set up a nest in my back porch. Normally I would remove the nest, but this is just the type of bird I need. They don’t eat seed at all and are purely insectivores eating flies among other type of insects. I hope they columnize.

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