[BiggKidd]

A multi prong attack would probably be best. Go to your local farm supply and get spray or pour on treatment for the cows. Then hang glue sheets around feeders and water. Third and most important probably build some bird houses to attract the birds to eat the bugs. Purple martins and bats are some of the best.

[Carter]

Synergy animal product. Jessica from roots and refuge uses this brand. And Justin rhodes recently showed the fly spray in a video.

[Blondie]

Redmons Real Salt has a salt for cattle with garlic added to repel biting insects. Josh and Carolyn from Homesteading Family says its working for them. Here’s the link. https://shop.redmondagriculture.com/pages/cattle

[Toni]

I agree with the multi-pronged idea. We had terrible problem with flies also early on. Most important things we think helped long term were having free ranging chickens and guineas, and buying and encouraging fly predators. Never ever kill any bees on the property of any kind whatsoever. We have many wasps of all kinds and they all eat fly larvae – prevention is really effective… We also have and encourage and protect our hornets – we have them very close by every year. And we love them! They eat already hatched adult flies, right straight off the cows!! Nature’s fly swatter if you will. Invite bats to your barn or wherever your cattle are by lighting it at dusk to draw in other insects and they will also help reduce the fly populations. Manage your manure somehow. Special fly season mineral blends or the abc mineral program for the cattle will help also. Provide deep shade for the cattle somehow, either with wooded areas or dark barns, as examples. Short term- fly brushes can help, electric bug zappers, sticky tapes, sprays or pour ons (we don’t use any chemicals at all but others do so just throwing that out there). Plus the other great ideas others have already mentioned. Best wishes! Flies suck!!

[FatherFigure]

I saw a video that showed amazing results for a chemical free way to remove the flies. Wrap large fly paper around small/medium garbage cans (sticky side out) and place them where the livestock gather. Change the paper as needed. Should notice less flys as time goes on. https://youtu.be/pFHJJOdOzK8

[Jen-in-Ok]

the flys lay their eggs in the fresh cow pies. ideally you would be able to move the cows to new pasture before they hatch in less than a week, or have chickens come up behind the cows to scratch apart the piles and eat the larvae(by day 3 to 4), or both…

a pour-on will get the flys on the cows now, but in my experience only last about 2 weeks and needs re-applied. (it is also bad for the dung beetles- but so are the chickens 🙂

[Andrew-Lisa]

Very possible it could be an alkalinity issue in the cattle. You can put baking soda and some Redmond conditioner in front of them, add a little sugar. You can also look up Steve Cambell.

[BeaverCreek58277]

We have had excellent results with garlic salt. Garlic powder does not work. But something with garlic salt mixed in with a little molasses works WONDERFUL! However if these are dairy cattle your milk may have a different taste. You can get protein lick tubs with garlic salt. We get these for our beef and have had no issues with flies bothering them. Another thing we have done is to our manure piles is adding lime (barn lime) as it helps get rid of the maggots that hatch. Also, fly traps. We hang them around our perimeter of our yard. They stink but work awesome for catching flies…if you live where it’s warm year round Venus fly traps are something I would plant. Unfortunately we freeze for 6-8 months out of the year.

[coyotech]

If eating garlic salt and molasses keeps flies away from cattle, maybe that would work for me and the dogs this summer, too!