The Alpaca Anti-Fly Kit!
Now the weather has warmed up a bit and we are out of winter’s icy grasp (sorry – been listening to too many dramatic Italian weather forecasts!)I have noticed there are some small and pesky flies in the shelter and around the alpacas. This is despite my almost fanatical “coffee bean” clearing, three times a day.
I googled some solutions and came up with this very cheap and simple one so am doing it as an experiment. Basically you fill plastic freezer bags with a bit of water add a coin and then hang them up. The idea is that the flies think the water filled bags are super scary humungous spiders’ webs and that the coin is the big spider itself lying in wait.
Well, it’s worth a try isn’t it? It may also be the reason that I have seen a lot of jars of water and such hanging from trees in the fields here in Italy.
Anyway, I have made about eight so far and put them in the shelter and on the fence. I used some old English 2p coins I had as they seemed nice and big.
According to the forum post I read (can’t remember the source now) it takes a few days to work but is now magically keeping flies out of this American lady’s field.
The plastic bags in the alpaca shelter
So as we are into day two I can report there DO seem to be fewer flies but they are still there. I will keep you posted as if this works it would be fantastic!
This is actually a really common thing in Texas. Restaurants with outdoor seating use it. I never heard why and there are no pennies in the bags but that’s a clever story. 😀
Hello,
I was just curious how this ended up working for you? We are planning to try this as well.
Hi Sam
It’s hard to say as I’m afraid if I take them down we’ll get inundated with flies, but I think it does work to some extent. It certainly gets people talking when they come and visit the alpacas!