# I despise Flies!! Basic H anyone?



## elchivito (Apr 18, 2010)

When the monsoon season hits here in the SW we get biblical fly blooms. I do a good job managing manure and cleaning but still they come. Sick of spending a fortune on sprays, not to mention the safety issues. Some horsey-type friends claim they are using Shaklee Basic H mixed about 2tsp. to a half gallon of water in a pump sprayer and are having great results. I don't always trust horsey-types, they seem to have more money than sense sometimes. :greengrin:

Anyone here tried BasicH for fly control?? The bottle I ordered just arrived and I'm going to spray down the barn and loafing areas and give it a try.


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

I think you will have to let us know how it works.


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## Mamaboyd (Oct 10, 2013)

I spray ac vinegar mixed with water on my horse for flies. And add it to the water buckets. Haven't tried it on the goats yet. Bronco brand fly spray works well too. (it's a horse spray lol). Let us know how your spray works!


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## elchivito (Apr 18, 2010)

ACV is good for the goats, but I've not seen it to be a long lasting fly repellent, at least not here in the heat. Bronco and the other brands all contain pyrethrum, pieperonyl butoxide and often permethrin. The first two aren't too much of a concern to me but the last is. It'll kill cats with very little contact and has cumulative neuro-toxic effects. Also deady to honey bees. I won't use them as a premise sprays for that reason. They are also silly expensive.
Using the Basic H last evening and this morning, it seems to have a similar knock-down effect on flies as any other spray. Whether they stay down and die or dry off and fly away all sparkly clean is unknown at this time. I might do a jar test or something. I'll update some more.
Cost: A 16oz. bottle of concentrate cost 16 bucks on Amazon. At 2tsp per 1/2 gallon of water it'll make *many* gallons of spray. I recently paid 35 dollars for a bottle of Wipe-X pyrethrum spray concentrate. Following label directions a pint bottle will make only 4 gallons of spray.


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## scubacoz (Nov 7, 2013)

Get some fly predators. They won't kill the adults but they do kill the babies. 


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## Mamaboyd (Oct 10, 2013)

Muscovy ducks keep flies under control great...if you don't mind ducks around


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## canyontrailgoats (Jan 4, 2014)

You can buy large rolls of fly paper and tack it to the barn walls, maybe with a piece of fruit or something for bait. Then all the flies land on it and there ya go! I've seen some people cover their whole barn with sheets of the cheaper fly paper, and by the end of the day the walls are black and buzzing.


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## lottsagoats1 (Apr 12, 2014)

I have fly paper all over the barn, big and small. Between those and the chickens, my fly problems is not as bad as in the past.

The fly predators are great, as long as you don't have poultry.


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## DonnaBelle66 (Mar 4, 2013)

*Flies*

This year we put out the trap and toss fly catchers. I added the regular fly attractant and also some raw meat. Wow. We filled them up in a hurry.

We also use the sticky fly strips.

Although we've had a lot of rain this year in East Central Oklahoma, not had as big a fly problem for some reason.

Try a couple of the Trap and Toss fly catchers. They do smell bad, which bothers DH more than me. Of course, he can't stand to change a poopy diaper and it doesn't bother me so that probably explains that. LOL. Men, and they're the stronger sex??

DonnaBelle


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## elchivito (Apr 18, 2010)

I always use the trap and toss traps and they fill up fast. I'm kind of of the opinion that they ATTRACT about twice as many as they catch. So far the flies are under control well and we've had plenty of rain. Usually as soon as monsoon season starts they get real bad. I don't know if it's the Basic H or not but I'm not using anything else. I might be a little more active in keeping the loafing area raked of waste hay and manure, which can't hurt either.


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## Frosty (Feb 13, 2010)

I was having a big problem with flies in all my coops. I found a solution on pininterest and its cheap. You cut a two liter soda bottle a ways down from the top then you place the top upside down into the bottom. Put something in the bottom that smells to draw the flies in. I have them hanging in all my shelters and don't often see many flies. Just a thought it worked for me and it didn't cost a fortune. btw I put a guinea hen egg in the bottom of mine..


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## canyontrailgoats (Jan 4, 2014)

^ could you post a pic of that?


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## teejae (Jan 21, 2013)

we get flies all year round but the worst are in summer(we are near the tropic of Capricorn so get the monsoon rains).The worse ones are the Buffalo fly.Our neighbors have cattle and we have common fence boundaries so get plagues of these nasty bighting flies :-x they love me and get the goats on their udders.Last summer we didnt seem to get any which suprised us and we found out the neighbors had put insect repellant ear tags on their cattle.A friend sugested putting these repellant tags on the goats collars.I havnt done this but thought what a great idea.Ive used all sorts of horse sprays that are very expensive.Ive also used fly paper and the goats thought they were quite delicious!!They had gone to great lengths to stand up against the wall and pull them down to eat!! ewwwww some had flys on them,teejae


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## Frosty (Feb 13, 2010)

when I go out to put my animals in for the night I will take my camera and get a picture.


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## scubacoz (Nov 7, 2013)

We had flies really bad, I started raking the hay and manure to spread the piles out and we also are getting the fly predators, our fly problems a lot better since we got the predators.


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S&K Hilltop Farm and Ranch
Registered mini-Nubians and Nigerian Dwarfs


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

elchivito said:


> When the monsoon season hits here in the SW we get biblical fly blooms. I do a good job managing manure and cleaning but still they come. Sick of spending a fortune on sprays, not to mention the safety issues. Some horsey-type friends claim they are using Shaklee Basic H mixed about 2tsp. to a half gallon of water in a pump sprayer and are having great results. I don't always trust horsey-types, they seem to have more money than sense sometimes. :greengrin:
> 
> Anyone here tried BasicH for fly control?? The bottle I ordered just arrived and I'm going to spray down the barn and loafing areas and give it a try.


You can use it to spray areas where flies breed or congregate, once they have been misted, they can't fly anymore and die. They will not bother or bite animals who have been sprayed with it. You can make a diluted spray with 5-7 parts water and one part basic H . You can adjust the mixture to suit your area, but the concentration is plenty strong. You can also use to bathe your horses, yourself and your tack too. PH is in the range of human and horse skin, so it is great for sensitive skinned horses and people. A gallon makes about 7 gallons of fly spray.


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## scubacoz (Nov 7, 2013)

There are 2 Basic H is it the Basic H or Basic H2? 


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S&K Hilltop Farm and Ranch
Registered mini-Nubians and Nigerian Dwarfs


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## elchivito (Apr 18, 2010)

I have the H2. The original Basic H now only comes in gallons and 5 gallons. So far I'd say the H2 isn't working. At first it seemed to be, but lately we've had increasing flies as the humidity goes up. I'm going to try it at a higher concentration. I've been using about a tablespoon in a half gallon sprayer. It's much higher than any of the concentrations that Shaklee recommends for cleaning, foams a lot and I can taste it in the spray, but it still doesn't seem to do much. I've watched individual flies knocked down by it and they fly off just fine after a few minutes' drying time.


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## elchivito (Apr 18, 2010)

Frosty said:


> I was having a big problem with flies in all my coops. I found a solution on pininterest and its cheap. You cut a two liter soda bottle a ways down from the top then you place the top upside down into the bottom. Put something in the bottom that smells to draw the flies in. I have them hanging in all my shelters and don't often see many flies. Just a thought it worked for me and it didn't cost a fortune. btw I put a guinea hen egg in the bottom of mine..


I've gone back and forth with traps. Sometimes it seems to me that they attract about 3 times as many flies as they catch, and stink to high heaven. I have 4 out now and they're catching flies, but there are just as many or more un-caught. YMMV


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