Anyone ever hear of or use Fly Predators marketed by Spalding Labs (www.spalding-labs.com)? It is supposed to be used around stables and riding areas to keep flies to a minimum.

Per the literature, the main species they use in the product are Spalangia cameroni, Muscidifurax zaraptor, Trichomalopsis and Muscidifurax raptorellus.

My wife and I are interested in trying this product, but wanted to hear from someone that has first, if there is one.

Have not heard of them, but for centuries farmers have been using Gallus gallus & Gallus gallus domesticus. When given free run of the stables, they will dig through the manure, find the fly eggs, and eat them.

We have almost no fly problem since we added guinea chickens to our barn and surrounding area. The other chickens probably help a lot too - they were pretty young and still attracting more flies than they were eating when we got the guineas.

So, your regular chickens weren't doing that good of a job controlling the flys before you added the guineas? We just got some chicks two weeks ago and might get some more. We got them mainly for eggs, but I know they help to control bug populations as well.

I've heard some say that guineas are noisy and others say the noise isn't that bad. What is your experience with them? We don't mind some noise, but prefer less of it if we can.

Are you using chickens around your yard/stables to help control insects? How many would you suggest per unit area to help control the bug population?

We started with chicks last spring, and had them in a hutch in a spare horse stall. (we have one horse and about all he does in the barn is eat - he grazes, "fertilizes" and probably sleeps outside the barn and in the pasture.) We were noticing more flies in the chicken stall, and started putting out cedarcide, which helped some. We got the guinea chicks before the other chicks were very big, but out of the hutch. So I really can't say whether the guineas or chickens help more. The guineas are noisy, especially if you are in the metal barn with them. But we are in the country with lots of space, so the noise doesn't bother us much.
As far as how many per area, I really couldn't say. We started with 8 guineas, I think, and are down to 4; plus 13 chickens that we got about the same time.
Certainly more fun than sprays or granules!

We do. They are great We typically put them out once in the spring @ 1000 per animal unit and they keep the flies under control all year. I have skipped a couple of years and we still have the predators. The flies seam to get ahead of the predators in the spring so we like to put out extra in the spring. We also have dung beetles and chickens, they help out tremendously. Chickens spread the pats and eat the bugs they find and the beetles take the dung under ground. Hope this makes since.

Have not heard any of this weird problem. I never had a fly problem, since I added guinea chickens. Don't know y U experiencing this.! Dont have any clue.

bitteroot, are you saying you bought dung beetle larvae and spread them around, or are you just talking about the natural occurance of them?

Sorry it's been a whole since I was on here. They are here naturally. But you can buy them. Page 12 http://rinconvitova.com/catalog_fly_control.pdf

We have used the Fly Predators for two spring and one summer. We still has a horrible fly population this spring. The flys were so bad that they ate the hair off of our donkeys legs. I stopped using the predators, because I couldn't see they were doing any good. The weather wasn't helping. Our March & April were wet and great breeding grounds for the flys. Once the weather dryed out we had less flies. We were spending about $50 a month. So it is more money than we wanted to spend.