Steve, Manitoba fly trap

[TWHRider]

Steve, this was posted on one of the horse forums.

Have you seen them?

They can be bought but I'm sure you could easily make one. The critical part is the BLACK ball as it's dark movement that attracts these flies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcTaUZBQees

Even being surrounded by beef farms, I have never seen more than a handful in the late summer. If I were swarmed with them, I think I'd have a bunch of these

 

[That Guy]

Fly masks on the neighboring horses daily, now.

 

[TWHRider]

Fly masks on the neighboring horses daily, now.

Yepper, mine have been in fly masks since late March. That early is mostly for the UV protection from the sun; the ones I buy provide a minimum of 70% protection yet they can still see out of them even after dark. I noticed they have a lot less water running out of their eyes if they have their "sunglasses" on.

Sadly it isn't the front end of the horse those B52 B****ards bite. They will land dead center in the hollow of the back or in the meat of the butt and drill in. The horse will drop and roll but often times the fly is in such a position or has such hold with that needle, it doesn't come off.

A light color horse sheet might work in some living conditions but we have so much heat/humidity, I would suffocate everyone. When I had three of them in the Low Desert area of Riverside County (within spittin' distance of the Domenigoni Reservoir), it could hit 109 degrees and nobody broke sweat in that arid heat.

Here, in Middle Tennessee, once the temps start hitting the low 90's and we have a high dew point to go with the humidity per cent, they will be dripping when they come in at night. That means I have to cold hose every one down and hook a bunch of fans to timers for a few hours.

I could never turn them out in the thinnest of protective sheets, under those conditions, so I keep my fingers crossed the handful of those big black horse flies that we see in late summer will never get any worse.