The Red Top Fly Trap was something I discovered a couple of years ago and now buy half a dozen of these every year to control the number of flies around the garden and my poultry pens and houses that are spread across an acre of land.

Living in the countryside next to fields where livestock are kept and having slowly increased the number of chickens I keep over the years, I have noticed quite a lot of flies around which I believe have been helped by the constant supply of manure around the place.

A couple of years ago, I decided to try to control the numbers but didn’t fancy spraying anything nasty around the place. It’s against my principals of having an organic garden and I rarely use strong chemicals even for cleaning the birds coops out, opting for the environmentally friendly poultry shield instead.

I came across the Red Top Fly Trap online and although at first I was concerned that this wouldn’t catch enough of the flies to make much of an impact outside, I have found them to work particularly well, especially if they are used at the beginning of the season when they can catch female flies that would otherwise be laying eggs.

The red top fly trap bait is organic and non toxic so is safe for domestic animals like dogs, although hanging them up by their string means it is unlikely pets will get hold of them anyway.

How does it work?

The Red Top Fly Trap works in a very simple way. Essentially, it is a plastic bag with a plastic top that has a gap to allow flies to crawl in. There is a small piece of mesh in a funnel shape that guides the fly downwards into the bag. Once a fly is inside the bag, it can fly around inside but doesn’t find the small opening in the mesh that it came in through.

In the bottom of the bag, there is a mixture of –well I’m not sure what it is, but it smells pretty horrible to me but certainly attracts the flies.

Eventually, the fly will crawl into or fall into the mixture. The trap is capable of catching 20’000 flies and by the end of the season, you can see the number of flies that have built up in the bottom of the bag.  

How to use the Red Top Fly Trap

Each trap comes flat packed in a bag and it’s very easy to assemble the trap.

First, open up the bag and place the attractant that is in the sachet into the bottom of the bag, adding the prescribed litre of warm water with it.

Place the lid on the trap and find a tree or similar to hand the trap in.

The traps attract flies so ensure you place them away from your home. They do smell once they get going so I have found it convenient to place them a few meters up into trees where you’re less likely to get a waft of one when walking by.

Or... in pictures:

Add the bait to the trap.	Top up with correct amount of water	Fly trap ready to put outside

Add the clip-on red top and that’s it, it's ready to put outside! You’ll soon notice flies building up inside the trap and the numbers of flies dropping. I use 6 traps spread over an acre of ground.

Tips:

• Set traps early in the season (Spring) to catch females that will otherwise lay eggs.
• Place the traps in trees or in hedges away from where you’ll smell them.
• Do not place traps near your home or where you don’t want flies – They are attracted to the trap.