My mother remembers her father making fly traps out of metal window screen, some type of cone shape, which they could enter but not get out of, then when full of flys, he burned them. We have horses and some years the flys are awful. Does anyone know how to make the screen traps? Thanks!

-- Janice Bullock (Janice12@aol.com), January 21, 2000

Answers

I bought a fly trap which sounds like what you described i will try to discribe it. It has a mesh stove pipe main cylinder which has screen coming up from bottom which looks like a inverted cone it has a opening at pointed end of cone and then over the top of the cylinder is more screen [looks like a hat boxs with screen top and screen funnel bottom ] flys are atracted by a smelly yeast bait bowl on floor [trap has 3 inch mettal legs which hold it off floor] they fly into bottom of funnel up to top cut end then are traped between funnel and mesh cylander.Hope that helps, have you tried fly parasites? they and parasitice nematodes both have worked well for me.

-- kathy h (saddlebronc@msn.com), January 21, 2000.

The trap which I am about to describe works well with biting flys here in Florida. I believe that the original design was published in Countryside many years ago. Use 1 x 2 lumber to build a rectangular frame about two feet long, one foot wide and 2 feet high. Use 1 x 4's 5 feet long to put four legs on the frame. Starting to look like a deer or horse? Cover the top and all four vertical sides with black screening. On the bottom, use hardware cloth to create an inverted "V" with a 1/2 - 3/4 inch slot running the length of the bottom of the V. Cover the hardware cloth with black screening. That's it. Put the trap somewhere near where the flys are found. Apparently they are fooled by the shape and color into thinking that it is an animal. They will fly onto the "belly" of the trap, follow the inverted "V" to the slot and fly inside. From there they spend the rest of their short lives trying to fly out through the sides. I made one end of mine out of 1/4 inch plywood with hinges so I could empty it. It will start to smell long before it gets full. Good luck, John and Pat

-- John and Pat James (jjames@n-jcenter.com), January 26, 2000.

Thanks for the ideas. I certainly will try them, I'm desparate to get rid of the critters without resorting to chemicals. Now if we could just eliminate the mosquitos....They are only a problem in the am and pm, and you wouldn't think there would be any here as it is so dry, but I suppose they live in all the moist areas of the garden (as well as in the junk the neighbors have in their pastures!) Thanks again!

-- Janice Bullock (Janice12@aol.com), January 27, 2000.

Barn swallows will do a fantastic job of getting rid of skeeters. They don't need much, just some mud to build their nests, and someplace to build.Ours are mostly in the big chicken coop. Actually they drive me nuts in the summer because they stay out later than the chickens. So I have to stay up andwait for the swallows to go to bed before I can finish my chores. At least that's what I do early in the season when they've got eggs or very young nestlings. After that I figure an occasional night without their parents is an important part of their growing up.

A lot of people really sing the praises of purple martins, but they're tough to attract. You also have to build or buy a house and pole, and then keep trashing the other birds' nests until the martins happen to turn up, if they ever do. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), January 28, 2000.