"No Chemical" Fly Trap

No Chemical Fly Trap MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous A pair of 5-gal buckets along with some plexiglass and landscape fabric can be used to make a simple horse fly trap that will greatly reduce your horse fly population says Derald Stephens Copan Okla
     It s cheap to set up and costs nothing to operate says Stephens who has two of the traps set up around his horse paddock I came up with the idea because I wasn t happy with commercial fly traps on the market
    The buckets are filled with dish soap water and set on the ground between a pair of T-posts A 24-in wide 18-in high section of clear plexiglass is attached to the posts over the buckets with some landscape fabric above the plexiglass to simulate an animal carcass The dark fabric above the plexiglass attracts the horse flies and as they fly toward what they think is a meal they hit the plexiglass and fall into the buckets and drown
     I ve used this idea for two years and it really works says Stephens I keep the traps outside the paddock so the horses won t get into them Some of the horse flies intentionally land on the water to get a drink but because of the soapy mix they can t fly off and eventually drown I use a net to scoop the dead flies out when they get too thick
     I bought the plexiglass at Lowes for about $15 Black plastic would probably work as well as landscape fabric
    To attach the plexiglass Stephens drilled holes through the plexiglass and the T-posts then wired it in place I had to modify a bit to use on the plexiglass because a regular drill bit would break it he says I just ground down a regular drill bit so the cutting edges aren t so aggressive which results in more of a scraping action I used metal paper clips to attach the landscape fabric to the posts
    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Derald Stephens P O Box 424 Copan Okla 74022 ph 918 532-4766; deraldstephens@yahoo com

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