I had always thought that seeing a lady bug was something special – a lucky sighting, that didn’t happen every day. And if I remember correctly, you got to make a wish on that bright-shelled bug (while you pleaded with her to go home and save her children) making it an extremely fortuitous day for all.
In an effort to control what may or may not be a problem with flies and our chickens (long story) I’ve been looking into different types of fly control.
Offered are standards like those long sticky tapes (the ones that always seem to catch your hair as you walk by and that get tangled in themselves by a touch of the wind) and a large assortment of fly bottle traps (or chambers of doom as we like to call them.)
You can also buy “critters” to combat your flies. Like ladybugs (who wouldn’t like to have an infestation of ladybugs in their backyard, how much fun and luck would that be?) and “predatory ants” whose claim to fame is that that apparently they like to eat fly eggs. Oh yum.
Seriously? Our yard abuts forested land. Can you imagine how destructive it could be to introduce non-indigenous “predatory ants” as a way to control some suspected flies in our chicken coop? Did we learn nothing from the rabbit fiasco in Australia?
Alas, there will be no ants for us, and as much as I would love to have stunningly-adorned bugs gather on the screen of our back door to wish me a good morning, we will also not be getting those little ladies. Instead it will be the reusable chambers of doom for our coop.
They sure aren’t as pretty as ladybugs, but if they work like they say they do (with the added bonus of not upsetting the ecological balance of our backyard), I will consider myself to be as lucky as if I had made a wish on a mother who flees on a puff of breath to ensure the safety of her children.
