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NATURAL FLY REPELLENT

July 07, 2015

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Natural Fly Repellent

Diatomaceous earth makes a great natural fly repellent around the yard and especially on the farm. Moisture and smell often go hand in hand, so DE is a great choice when drying to deodorize and dry these places out. Diatomaceous earth is effective because its porous diatoms absorb moisture and deodorize the area. Before treating areas with DE, it's important to understand the pattern for fly infestations. Dirty livestock habitats and built-up manure increases the rate of fly production. It's key to shovel manure frequently and maintain sanitary living conditions in addition to applying diatomaceous earth. As a bonus, flies typically avoid DE treated places. Once a fly is dusted with DE, the diatoms it will slowly dehydrate; however, in this situation DE works best as a fly repellent. Please see the instructions below for how to apply DE around your yard or farm.

How-To Instructions

Grab Everything You Need

Make sure you have all the right equipment for the job. You can select from our diatomaceous earth products that includes applicators or just buy some DE and use your own applicators. There is no wrong way to apply diatomaceous earth; it just needs to come into contact with the insect to work.

Prepare for DE Application

As stated above, it's important to first clean out all living quarters of anything that would attract flies. This will ensure the diatomaceous earth has maximum effect.

Apply DE to Horses & Cattle

Once the stables are clean, you can apply DE directly to the animal's coat (while avoiding the eyes, ears, and mouth). This natural fly control will keep flies away from the animal's skin. It will also give time for existing wounds to heal without pestering flies.

Apply DE in Other Areas

It's also helpful to dust DE around their food, watering trough, stables (any moist areas where flies could nest and lay eggs) and manure/compost heaps.Be sure to add a light sprinkling of DE over the compost heap where the flies breed. Some farmers treat their livestock during the spring and the fall, which will deter flies for the summer. However, it may be useful to treat in the summer as well.

Prevent Future Fly Outbreaks

By including DE in your regular cleaning schedule you can ensure that flies will be kept to a minimum all year round. Remember that DE is most effective when dry. Reapply whenever the diatomaceous earth gets washed away or cleaned out.

Helpful Tips and Warnings

Go to our Natural Pesticides page to view other articles on how to deal with other insect problems.

You can also feed your livestock DE. To read more about it, go to our Using DE as a Feed Additive article.

Reapply DE to your livestock's coat as often as required. Depending on the activity level of the animal, this could be anywhere from everyday to once a week.

1 Response

Hugo

October 09, 2016

I have read that Diatomaceous earth is good as a an ant and beetle repellent/killer – this because the structure of the earth actually is microscopically sharp which actually results in the insects getting cut to death. Sounds cruel – but worth a shot. My concern is that some of your products are very refined – will they thus be as effective?