heel fly

[allinnow]

My cattle look like they have heel flies. What can I do to get rid of them?

 

[msscamp]

IGR's, Rabon blocks, spraying, rubs, bullets, predators - take your pick. Dealing with heel flies is not that much different that other flys, except heel flies eventually produce grubs - raised bumps on the back of the animals. You want to be careful when you treat for grubs, becausing doing it at the wrong time carries the very real possibility of killing your animals.

 

[milesvb]

IGR's, Rabon blocks, spraying, rubs, bullets, predators - take your pick. Dealing with heel flies is not that much different that other flys, except heel flies eventually produce grubs - raised bumps on the back of the animals. You want to be careful when you treat for grubs, becausing doing it at the wrong time carries the very real possibility of killing your animals.

IGR and Rabon inhibit the growth of fly larvae in cow patties, correct? That won't interupt the life cycle of heel flies are is IGR or Rabon systemic and prevents the development of grubs in the cow?

 

[msscamp]

IGR's, Rabon blocks, spraying, rubs, bullets, predators - take your pick. Dealing with heel flies is not that much different that other flys, except heel flies eventually produce grubs - raised bumps on the back of the animals. You want to be careful when you treat for grubs, becausing doing it at the wrong time carries the very real possibility of killing your animals.

IGR and Rabon inhibit the growth of fly larvae in cow patties, correct? That won't interupt the life cycle of heel flies are is IGR or Rabon systemic and prevents the development of grubs in the cow?

Yes, and you're absolutely correct in that IGR/Rabon are not systemic and will not prevent grubs from developing. I should have realized that, but I didn't - that is my mistake, and I apologize. Thanks for pointing that out, Miles, I appreciate it!

Heel flies only live for a few weeks, and only produce eggs once a year, so by properly treating the grubs the life cycle has been interrupted and a new batch prevented. Again, thank you.

 

[dun]

Heel flys, the warble stage, drop to the gound and pupate. It takes a month to 2 months for them to become flys. While breaking the cycle by treating for grubs in theory should completely liminate the cursed heel fly (gad fly) it doesn;t seem to work. Each year we have a few heel flys and we've treated for them for years. The only other cattle that are even fairly close are the dairy heifers and I know they're treated for grubs every year also. I sometimes think they may be like weed seeds that can sit in the ground for years until conditions are just right and then pop up.
Horse flys about all you can realisticly do is prevent muddy wet spots where they lay their eggs. It doesn;t seem like any of the insecticides really do much good. There is a trap that can be built that the cows walk through and it traps the flys. The thing is about the size of a volkswagon so not real pratical

dun

 

[msscamp]

Heel flys, the warble stage, drop to the gound and pupate. It takes a month to 2 months for them to become flys. While breaking the cycle by treating for grubs in theory should completely liminate the cursed heel fly (gad fly) it doesn;t seem to work. Each year we have a few heel flys and we've treated for them for years. The only other cattle that are even fairly close are the dairy heifers and I know they're treated for grubs every year also. I sometimes think they may be like weed seeds that can sit in the ground for years until conditions are just right and then pop up.

Do you think it might be a regional thing as well? We haven't had a problem with heel flies for quite a few years now, but we always treated every year, anyway.

Horse flys about all you can realisticly do is prevent muddy wet spots where they lay their eggs.

Horse flies are attracted to urine. We used to have one or two show up from time to time, then we got certain young college kids in, they wouldn't clean their runs, and within a few weeks, we were killing 12-14 of the darned things in a matter of several days - always around the runs where the dirty, wet runs were. They moved on, and the number of horse flies dropped dramatically.

dun