A two-year comparison of house fly and stable fly populations at three different types of dairy facilities in the Texas panhandle

Throughout the years work has been done to construct the most efficient and economical dairy facility that increases production, eliminates health issues and disease risks. Three main types of dairy facilities are currently utilized in the United States; open dry-lot, free-stall and cross ventilation. Each style of facility has a unique impact on the fly populations on and around a dairy. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of 3 different dairy facility types on number of house flies and stable flies present during summer. House flies were collected with 4 Dinotefuran baited scatter bait traps and stable flies were collected with 4 Olson biting fly traps within each of the 3 dairy facility types. The fly traps were placed throughout each facility and flies were collected weekly for 10 wks from May until August in 2010 and 2011. The 3 facilities were found to contain both house flies and stable flies. The open dry-lot barn had more (P < 0.05) stable flies than either the free-stall or cross ventilation barns and the free-stall barn had more (P < 0.01) stable flies than the cross ventilation barn.  There were more (P < 0.05) house flies in the free-stall barn than the open dry-lot or cross ventilation barn and the cross ventilated barn had more (P < 0.01) than the open dry-lot. In conclusion, results show that using a cross ventilated barn will reduce the stable fly populations compared to a free-stall or open dry-lot facility. Collected house fly populations were found to be the lowest at dry-lot facilities but this could be variable due to trap locations that allow adult flies to avoid scatter bait traps.  Further studies are needed to assess the ability of different facility types to reduce the negative effects of different fly populations on dairy cattle.