Natural Way to Kill Maggots

The days when medical professionals used maggots to clean wounds are long gone, so it's hard to imagine a beneficial use for either flies or their larvae. While the fly larvae (maggots) do process a certain amount of organic matter, they are both an inconvenience and a menace in their adult form. Because the use of pesticides around horses and food animals is inadvisable, and in some cases illegal, controlling them can be a challenge.

Houseflies, face flies, blowflies and others all share a common affection for moist organic matter as an egg-laying medium. This is why maggots are so often spotted in piles of fresh manure or garbage cans containing discarded food--and why every fly in the neighborhood congregates at the least sanitary home. This is what maggots eat.

Take away this amenity. Make sure that barnyard manure is immediately spread out so it is exposed to sun and air. This will not only make it less attractive as a breeding medium, but will also kill some of the maggots that may already have hatched. Better yet, spread it near an ant hill, if you have meat-eating ants around. Some ants view maggots as a tasty buffet.

Free-range chickens and a number of wild birds will gladly spend the day doing the work of turning the manure for the privilege of gobbling up maggots. Let your chickens spend time in the barnyard and find ways to encourage insect-loving birds to stay near.

Don't neglect the compost pile. Maggot control is one of the benefits of turning compost regularly.

If you have discarded food, used cat litter or any other wet organic matter in your household trash, keep it sealed tight and get rid of it as quickly as possible.

If you can't get rid of rotting garbage right away, you can also spray it generously with bleach solution--about a cup of bleach to a gallon of water--to kill emerging maggots and reduce the odor of rotting food that is so attractive to flies.

Borax laundry detergent sprinkled directly on the maggots and rotting food will also kill them and somewhat improve the smell of your garbage.

A single female housefly lays about 500 eggs over her lifetime and maggots mature to breeding age in as little as two weeks during the summer. This translates into exponential growth of fly populations over time, so the more adults you can kill before they reproduce, the better off you'll be by late summer.

There are many fly capture devices on the market today, and the most effective for barns and large yards is the plastic bag or jar with a one-way entry point and fly attractant inside. Make sure the trap you purchase has the right attractant for the species of fly you are doing battle with. The label should list which flies the trap will capture. Hang the bag where the smell--ambrosia to flies, but not to us--will draw the flies away from your house and traffic areas, then keep the contents wet. A big fly bag will continue to trap and kill flies into the thousands if you make sure that the attractant never dries out. If the attractant dries out, even for a short time, it loses much of its effectiveness.

Even after the cold weather returns and flies seem to disappear, you can do battle with the next generation of maggots. When the cold weather hits, the pupating fly larvae don't complete their cycle, but, instead, stay in their little cocoons until things warm up. They do this in areas of undisturbed manure, lawn and garden debris or even the corners of outbuildings and under your porch.

Get rid of debris by composting it, burning it or otherwise disposing of it. You can also obtain a number of insect predators--carried by many livestock supply houses and garden centers--that will seek out those pupating larvae and lay their eggs in them. There are many varieties of predators, so study carefully which predator to buy and the best time in your climate to release it.

Waste no time, come spring, in attacking the adult fly population. Remember, one female can produce 500 maggots only two weeks after she emerges from her cocoon.