Cattle "Rub" Helps Combat Flies

Cattle "Rub" Helps Combat Flies LIVESTOCK Health 29-6-35 "Sometimes, the flies are just so bad, it's pathetic," says cattleman Don Chambers of Moundsville, W. Va., who owned commercial oilers for livestock fly control but says they weren't enough. So, Chambers built some of his own low-cost, but very effective insecticide cattle rubs. "The phone company replaced some telephone poles outside our lane, and gave us the old ones, so we cut them up into 7-ft. posts. We put them in the ground about three feet, so they're pretty solid. Then, we covered them with carpet remnants using roofing nails," Don explains. "Lastly, we sprayed on ready-mixed insecticide that we buy in gallon jugs from a farm supply store." Chambers says any kind of carpet would work, but he used the shorter weave, Berber types. He placed one cattle rub beside his mineral feeder because that's where the animals congregate, and he installed another one out in the open. "Every three to four weeks, we re-soak the carpet," he says. "The cattle really like it. It's amazing how they rub their faces on the carpet as a way to get rid of the flies. The calves do it, too. I'm planning to put about three more of them out in the open field. It's really a cheap way to achieve fly control." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Candy Brook Farm, Don Chambers, RD 1, Box 191, Moundsville, W. Va. 26041 (ph 304 845-1816).

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