15 Tips For Controlling Flies In The Rabbitry

Flies become a problem for rabbits and their keepers when the seasons turn and the days start to warm. If your space is warm enough, or you live in a warm climate, flies could be a problem year-round.

Having flies in the rabbitry is a nuisance, but more importantly, it’s a rabbit health and safety issue. For the comfort and safety of you and your rabbits, you’ll want to do what you can to limit the presence of flies in and around your rabbits (whether they live inside or out).

Here, we discuss why flies hang around rabbits, what attracts them, and how you can stop their populations from exploding into a bigger issue.

Jump to:

• A Bit About Flies and What Encourages Them
• Flies Are More than Just a Bother
• 1. Number One Defense Against Flies in the Rabbitry: Keep up with cleaning!
• 2. Clear Cages of Blocked Corners Where Manure and Waste Build Up
• 3. Keep an Eye on Nest Boxes and Clean Up After Birth if Necessary
• 4. Keep Animals Clean
• 5. Use Fly Stickers and Traps
• 6. Keep Food Dishes Dry and Clean
• 7. Look for Leaking Waterers
• 8. Use Absorbent Materials in Drop Pans and Under Cages
• 9. Keep Feed and Pellets Covered
• 10. Sweep Barn Floors Regularly
• 11. Apple Cider Vinegar for Odor Control, Biting Fly Repellant
• 12. Look for Environments that Encourage and Breed Flies
• 13. Safe Use of Diatomaceous Earth in Rabbit-Safe Spaces
• 14. Lime Manure Piles
• 15. Compost Manure Away from the Rabbit Area or Barn
• Bonus: Let Spiders Live!
• Fly and Livestock or Barn Sprays Are Not a Great Idea
• Good Cleaning and Maintenance Will Keep the Flies at Bay

A Bit About Flies and What Encourages Them

The types of flies that will bother your rabbits (and you) in the rabbitry area are typically black flies of one sort or another. They could include gnats and biting black flies, too.

These flies need a few things to reproduce. These include:

• Moist environments or wet material
• A food source which is organic matter, and of which manure is a prime choice
• Pelleted feed or decaying feed that is wet can be a food source for flies, too

Flies come out and become an issue as the temperatures start to warm. They are most active in temperatures above 60° F (15.5° C). The hotter it is, the more flies breed and reproduce.

Temperature speeds up the fly life cycle. At 90°F, the lifecycle can go from 45 down to just seven days. As the days get warmer, you’ll need to be more vigilant and take more care to control the flies near your rabbits.

A single fly or a few flies may come into the rabbitry if there is a food source, but populations really explode when there are good conditions for breeding and hatching eggs and supporting the larvae (maggots—so gross!).

Controlling flies in the rabbitry focuses on two things:

1. Trapping or killing the flies and
2. Eliminating breeding grounds to break the fly lifecycle and limit populations

There are several things you can do toward these ends. Listed here are some of the main things to do and some good additional steps you can take to control flies even more.

Flies Are More than Just a Bother

Flies don’t just “bug” us or our rabbits. They are a health hazard, potentially for you but for your rabbits, too (probably more so for your defenseless rabbits).

• Flies carry over 100 diseases
• Flies are a stressful nuisance to both you and your rabbits
• Letting your rabbitry be a breeding ground for flies will increase and expose your home to fly problems, too – they can fly up to 20 miles, so finding other places on your property to cause problems won’t be hard, either! Flies prefer to stay within about ½ mile of home, though, so as long as you give them what they need, they’ll stay near you and inhabit your areas.
• Fly Strike (or myiasis) is a serious condition that is caused by flies and presents real risks to rabbitries

There are some simple things you can do so that flies don’t become too big of a problem for you and your rabbits. The following are 15 effective ways to help keep flies under control.

1. Number One Defense Against Flies in the Rabbitry: Keep up with cleaning!

If you want to keep flies down, the best thing you can do is to keep the rabbitry clean and deny them a place to feed and lay their eggs. Wet manure and bedding are the places flies will gravitate to the most.

• Empty dropping pans weekly
• Increase cleaning to twice per week if needed in periods of high heat and infestations
• Spray out pans to remove eggs that may be hiding in caked corners
• If you don’t use dropping pans and waste drops in piles below cages instead, clean the bedding and manure out of cages or hutches and/or shovel out piles of droppings from under the cages weekly or more often as needed

The fly life cycle varies, but in summer, it is about seven days. If you clean at least once every seven days, you’ll break the cycle. You’ll also be discarding eggs and larvae (maggots) before they hatch or become adult flies.

2. Clear Cages of Blocked Corners Where Manure and Waste Build Up

Keep an eye on the inside of cages. Sometimes, even in wire cages, the holes in the wire get blocked up.

This often happens during shedding season when molted fur gets stuck in the wires. Other things like hay or pieces of chew sticks that are too large to fit through the holes can end up blocking wire, too.

This often causes a buildup on the wire, usually in the rabbit’s “poop corner.” Feces, bedding, hay, and feed can build up on the wire, keeping it too close to the rabbit.

Not only does this create a potential for your rabbits to sit in their waste and get urine scald, but it also makes a nice moist corner with fecal matter for flies to feed and lay eggs in and for maggots to live in.

Keep blockages and build up like these out of the rabbit’s cages, especially in the summer fly season.

3. Keep an Eye on Nest Boxes and Clean Up After Birth if Necessary

Pay attention to nest boxes. This is important at all times of the year, but doubly so in fly season.

Most good does will do an excellent job of cleaning up after birth. They will eat the placenta to remove it. Shavings at the bottom of the box should absorb fluid and blood from birth.

Some does aren’t as good as others, especially if they’ve had difficulty during the birth.

• After the rabbit has had a chance to clean the nest box, remove any remaining afterbirth
• Scoop out shavings or bedding that are soaked in blood or birth fluids
• Remove dead kits immediately
• Make sure the mother is not using the nest box as a litter box
• If the bedding is wet, clean the box
• Do your best to preserve the fur pile to keep the kits warm until they are older and have fur of their own
• If you can’t preserve the fur (because it is soiled or soaked and would be more of a hazard than a help), replace it by either (gently) pulling fur from the mother’s belly area or using pulled cotton balls

4. Keep Animals Clean

Flystrike happens on dirty, wounded animals. Flies lay their eggs in open wounds or on matted, dirty fur. Those eggs hatch, and then the maggots feed on the skin and flesh of the animal. Obviously, this is a stressful, painful, and traumatic condition and it can result in death if it is left untreated.

And so, to prevent flystrike and deny flies a place to feed and lay eggs, keep your animals clean.

If any rabbits seem dirty or have matted fur, wash and groom them. Take care of their environment so they can’t get that dirty and don’t become a maggot host. Provide rest mats to prevent wounds and sore hocks. Keep animals in separate cages to prevent fighting and wounds.

If a rabbit does become wounded, treat it with antiseptics and wound ointments and keep a very close eye out for flystrike.

Note that older rabbits, such as old breeders, may be more susceptible if they are more prone to conditions like urine scald or flesh sores.

5. Use Fly Stickers and Traps

These are one of your other top lines of defense. Put up fly stickers and/or fly traps to catch and kill the adult flies. Hopefully, you’ll get them before they lay eggs and produce maggots.

Fly stickers are cheap and easy to use. They only cost a couple of dollars for five or six tapes. All you have to do is tack or hang the stickers to the ceiling and gently pull to extend the sticky tape. There is no poison or spray. Flies just get stuck when they land on them and die.

• Try to hang fly tapes in the path of the flies
• Look to see where flies hover and fly in patterns
• Hang sticker tapes as close as possible to that spot (though they often hover in inconvenient places like the aisle where you need to walk! Just get as close as you can for good placement)
• Replace stickers when they are full; plan on once a week, but in peak periods, you may have to replace them every few days and maybe daily in the beginning

Fly stickers are more of a solution for inside rabbitries (like in a barn or shed) or those kept under roofs. They won’t work out in the open where they’ll get rained on.

There are large cylinder-style fly trap/sticky traps with a roof-like cover that are designed to be used in barnyards. These can help if placed near your rabbit area or in the yard in general to help control the fly population.

Another product that works well is bag-style fly traps. These have a lure that draws flies into a food source. They collect in the bags and can’t get out. They catch hundreds, if not thousands, of flies.

Bag traps are better to use outside the rabbitry room. They will draw flies out and away from the rabbitry. They also have a rotten smell to them (luring the flies) and get smellier as the flies collect, so they’re not pleasant to have near where you spend a lot of time. But they do work well.

Trap bags are useful in the open outdoors and can keep flies away from the rabbit area. There are reusable styles, too, that can last for several seasons.

Between catching/trapping and regular cleaning to get rid of fly eggs and larvae, you’ll do a lot to disrupt the life cycle and keep the fly population down.

6. Keep Food Dishes Dry and Clean

Dry pellets and feed can become soiled, and they can absorb moisture in high humidity, too. When they do, they can become an environment that flies and their eggs and maggots like. Gross!

• Inspect feed dishes daily
• Get rid of any moist, caked feed – rabbits won’t eat it anyway
• Keep a close eye on cages with young and small kits – they like to stand in feeders and dishes and poop and pee where they eat
• Kits and young rabbits also seem to like to use pellets as litter sometimes
• Use smaller cups that are harder for kits to sit in while they eat
• Try new heights and placements in the cage for the cups – moving them away from chosen waste areas helps; sometimes, hanging them a little higher will stop kits from jumping in and out of them to eat
• Dump out any powdery fine material (dust from pellets, etc.), as these are what the rabbits leave and don’t eat, and they easily absorb moisture
• In close cages, sometimes rabbits and grow outs will urinate and spray or spill water into other cage’s feed dishes, so watch for that and move dishes as needed

This is one of the reasons I prefer not to use J-style feeders, and I use cage cups instead.

First of all, it’s easy to overfeed in a free-feeding J feeder. During humid and rainy periods, you’ll find that the uneaten feed in the J feeder easily absorbs moisture. This causes caking, feed waste, and creates a hospitable fly environment.

J feeders can also be difficult to clean when they become caked and soiled. Cage cups are easy to knock out and wipe clean.

Wetness and soiling can happen in any style of feeder, though, so be aware.

7. Look for Leaking Waterers

Water bottles like to drip, and they can create a wet place in drop pans and below cages for flies, eggs, and maggots. Check to see if bottles or automatic waterer nipples are leaking.

Cage cups and crocks being spilled can be a source, too. If rabbits are flipping them see what you can do to stop it (I’ve had success zip-tying cage cups over the clips for rabbits that like to play with feed and water cups).

8. Use Absorbent Materials in Drop Pans and Under Cages

Rabbit manure on its own is not moist enough to house fly eggs and larvae, but it is when it gets wet, either from urine or water. Use something to absorb excess water to reduce the moist environment. Kiln-dried pine shavings are safe to use with rabbits and do well absorbing excess liquid and urine, enough so that there isn’t a good place for flies to breed.

Absorbent materials and bedding also help to keep odors down. This reduces fly attraction and also keeps the air cleaner for your rabbits.

9. Keep Feed and Pellets Covered

Store your feed and pellets in a covered, closed container when you’re not feeding. Large plastic totes or covered galvanized or plastic trash cans work well.

This will keep it from absorbing moisture from the air and stop flies from landing in it. It also helps keep parasite-carrying rodents out of your feed.

10. Sweep Barn Floors Regularly

This will help keep waste from piling up, which denies adult flies food sources, and helps prevent waste from collecting in corners or under cages where it can get wet and become a breeding ground for flies and maggots.

Sweeping also helps to keep the floor of the rabbit room dry, and flies and their eggs don’t do dry. Flies may lay eggs on wet patches of the floor.

Rabbit manure itself is usually too dry for flies to breed in, but if it becomes moist from rain, humidity, or water, it can easily turn into a prime spot for reproduction. Sweeping out stray manure helps keep odors and opportunities down.

11. Apple Cider Vinegar for Odor Control, Biting Fly Repellant

Apple Cider Vinegar has many uses in the rabbitry. One of them is helping to control odors in urine. Drinking water with apple cider vinegar in it also makes the rabbits themselves more repellent to flies and biting insects.

12. Look for Environments that Encourage and Breed Flies

Look around your rabbit cages and around your rabbitry for other places that might be hosts and good environments for flies or for eggs and maggots. Remove it.

Look for areas that are:

• Moist
• Wet
• Mucky
• Have a food source (wet rotting feed, manure)
• Look for waste, manure, or old feed that might have gotten pushed out under, between, or behind cages
• Do a sniff test for rotting material or manure

13. Safe Use of Diatomaceous Earth in Rabbit-Safe Spaces

Diatomaceous Earth (DE) is a natural fine powder made up of fossilized silica. When insects with exoskeletons crawl across it, they get small cuts in their exoskeleton that cause them to dehydrate and die.

Flies are one of the insects that are killed by contact with DE, as are fleas, mites, and other parasites.

DE is natural, organic, and safe to use around the home and garden. It is safe for rabbits, except that there is a risk of lung irritation and opportunistic infection if they inhale too much of it.

Though some people do it, I wouldn’t recommend DE for powdering your rabbits or in a place where they can come in direct contact and inhale too much, but you can use it in the bottom of drop pans and on floors or the ground around cages to help kill flies and pests (including ants if you find them to be a problem).

One thing about DE is that when it is wet, it doesn’t work. So, it’s the most effective where it will stay mostly dry, or where it will dry out again (if it gets rained on but dries out again, it will work again).

14. Lime Manure Piles

Lime helps to control flies in a few ways.

1. Lime creates an alkaline environment that is not hospitable to flies
2. It dries out moist floors and wetness on floors, ground, and waste piles
3. Lime reduces manure and waste odors that attract flies

Rabbits should not come in contact with lime. It is to be used on floors away from the rabbits or as light dust on waste piles or in the bottom of drop pans.

• When using lime, spread it in a light layer over target areas
• Try not to create too much dust that the rabbits will breathe in (the lime will settle quickly, though)
• Lime the ground or floor around your rabbit cages weekly or more often as needed
• Lime manure piles and waste piles under rabbit cages once or twice per week or more often as needed to keep the waste pile from becoming a fly breeding ground and a food source

Lime is natural, safe, and organic and is not harmful to compost or gardens where it is applied (though you may want to do a pH test for soil that ends up with a lot of lime in it).

15. Compost Manure Away from the Rabbit Area or Barn

If you are piling manure and waste or if you keep a composting waste pile, keep it as far away from the rabbit area or rabbit barn as you can.

Compost and manure piles will naturally attract flies. Outdoors where they are away from you and your animals, pests, flies and maggots can help break piles down. If piles are kept near the barn or rabbit area, though, it only draws them to your animals and sends them out searching from there.

Bonus: Let Spiders Live!

Spiders are one of nature’s best pest and flying bug defenses. So why wipe them out of your rabbitry if they’re doing their job?

Old webs that have turned into dust-collecting cobwebs are a good thing to sweep down a few times a year, but new and working spider webs should be left alone. They’re not going to hurt your rabbits, but they sure can help them!

In fact, if you look at where your spiders are building their webs, that’s a good indication of where flies are flying and a good place to park your sticker traps in the flight line.

Fly and Livestock or Barn Sprays Are Not a Great Idea

Of course, there are sprays that are made to fog barns to kill flies, but for rabbits, these aren’t advised. Rabbits have sensitive respiratory systems and insect sprays and foggers are risky.

If you truly cannot get a handle on flies in your rabbit barn, and you feel you are forced to spray, it would be best to take the rabbits out of the rooms before you spray. That may not be practical, though, so at least cover the cages (with a tarp or sheets) while you spray and remove the covers soon after the spray has settled and dissipated.

If you do this, be very careful not to overheat your rabbits! Good, quality airflow is always important, as are cool conditions.

Also, don’t let the spray settle into water dishes. It would be best to remove them or turn them over during spraying. Fly killer is not something you want your rabbits ingesting.

Good Cleaning and Maintenance Will Keep the Flies at Bay

Truth be told, you’re probably never going to keep flies out of your rabbitry completely, at least not in the warm months. A good cleaning schedule, cleaning of the area and cages, along with a few simple tools like traps and tapes, will keep flies at least under control and reduce the risk of disease and fly strikes on your rabbits.

This is one of those instances where an ounce of prevention and upkeep are worth a pound of cure!