Fly Strips

So as you can imagine, four horses, two donkeys and ten chickens make a lot of poop which of course attracts flies, especially in the summer.  And since we had mulberries all over the ground during the summer where the hens come out and peck the ground and look for bugs and berries, yes, you guessed it - purple poop in the hen house.  I told Fred our eggs will soon be coming out purple.

Okay, I've wandered away from my point so back to the flies.  Fred decided to put fly strips in the horse stalls and was amazed at how many flies he got in the first ten seconds.  He insisted I come look.  Wow, that's exciting.  Anyway, he decided to put a fly strip in the chicken coop, which he did.  Two days later when I was opening the door to let the chickens out for the day, there was a fly strip stuck to a chicken.  I guess he put it up near where they roost.  I decided to let Fred take care of it since I was heading to the farmers market.  I called him and said you caught something on your fly strip - a chicken!  His plan was to open the door and as she ran out, snatch the strip off of her.  Like ripping off a band aid, right?  Unfortunately he missed and she ran into the woods with her fly strip.

The goods news was no flies would be bothering her for the day, but the bad news was I was afraid she'd get stuck to a tree or something in the woods with her sticky fly strip.  Fred called me at the market later to say it came off in the woods!  Disaster averted.

So, let's recap the day's important information:

1.  Chicken poop is stinky no matter what color it is;

2.  Mulberries are beautiful in the trees, but messy and stinky once they ferment on the ground (and of course we've learned how they stain everything), and the most important item of the day -

3.  Never put your fly strips too close to your chickens.

Hope everything is good in your hen house!