If you have 100 AU of beef, get yourself 100 chickens and build a portable coop (Google "chicken tractor" for plans). Using electric fencing, move the cattle every day to new pasture. Keep your chicken coop in the pasture where the cattle were 3 days ago. This 3-day waiting period gives the fly larva time to grow up to chicken food size. The chickens seem to know that their lunch is buried in the middle of the pads. They will spread your manure from 1 square foot to 3 square feet and eat every parasite egg or hatched larva they can find. If you wait 4 days, you will start hatching flies, so keep moving the tractor with each cattle move.
This requires no chemicals but it does require you to be on top of your livestock movements. In the end you'll have better pastures, happier beef, and damn good eggs! Chickens prefer to be carnivores. When the owls and coyotes take your chickens, get more fertilized eggs. They're worth it. Even if you get 100% roosters, the savings from flys and fly sprays is worth it.
_________________ David Hall Moderator Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum
|