it's actually a bit like living in a horror movie right now

[cimorene]

We managed to live a couple of years with house rabbits without contracting a house fly problem, but after last summer's super-hot heat wave we have never managed to get them all gone.

In my pre-house rabbit life, and even with house rabbits until last summer, finding multiple flies indoors meant they'd found somewhere to lay eggs, and all we had to do was take out all the trash and clean things - sweep and vacuum and mop, clean the counters and surfaces etc.

But since last summer the flies have never left, and they're driving us nuts, and we've done those things THREE times, even though we now have an amount of furniture that makes it very difficult to do it in one day because of the amount of moving things involved. (Normally the cleaning of surfaces gets divided up and spread out over time to avoid being exhausting.)

But that hasn't helped.

According to my understanding, this probably means there's somewhere we've forgotten to include in the cleaning list, but I'm not really sure what it would be. Could they be in the plant pots? Or as one alarming google result suggested, in the drains? (Maybe we should just buy a bunch of drain cleaner again?) Why hasn't someone invented a detector????

Last night I made the mistake of googling house flies + house rabbits and learned that at least in the UK and North America, everyone is petrified of their rabbits getting fly strike, which I'm familiar with anecdotally for sheep. I attempted to read the information while averting my eyes from the gory pictures, but failed because they weren't properly spoiler cut so I'm probably going to have those images in my nightmares forever, and more importantly, the articles mostly just gave me the impression that I'm incredibly lucky that our buns have never gotten fly strike before. (Or maybe it's less luck and more that the buns are good at bathing themselves.)

But either way, while they clearly haven't ever had it, now I'm going to be paranoid and start examining the little miscreants daily, which they're definitely not going to enjoy. Apparently bunny butts are the biggest danger zones, and as you may or may not know, Touching the Butt is basically the most offensive thing you can do to a bunny, and has even been known to offend Rowan so badly that he wouldn't eat the treat I gave him (in apology) (at least not for a few minutes, and not until I wasn't watching anymore). (Eating the peace offering, for a bun, constitutes a partial acceptance of the apology, so for the most heinous of crimes they will abstain.)

I guess Chief Inspector Japp and Rowan are both about to get a lot more used to having their little floofy butts touched, and meanwhile, I haven't really learned anything that's likely to help me with this issue. Most of it was other house rabbit owners agreeing that you're probably fucked and the best thing is to prevent flies from ever getting inside in the first place, and debating which kinds of bunny litter are easiest to change. Apparently some house rabbit owners fill their litter boxes with expensive ~gourmet scented wood chips infused with fly-repelling herbs or something and ... still end up changing them once a day? (Message boards are full of commiseration about how smelly they are. Our rabbits' boxes have never been smelly and they don't have a problem with simple hay over newspaper litter. Maybe pierydys just fortuitously gave us the best breed for litter boxes...?)

Comments

[tripleransom]

I've never had bunnies, but I do have cats (in the house) and horses (in the barn) so I know a lot about flies. I also had a horse that had an open wound on his leg for two years, (long, long story) so I know more than I EVER wanted to know about flystrike. Ugh! It was like being back in the days of the Civil War or something. I have a whole new level of respect for Clara Barton.

I'm betting it's the hay-over-newspaper bit. If the newspaper layer is damp at all, it's going to provide an ideal environment for fly larvae. They've got to have somewhere damp to breed. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

If that's the case, you should be able to lift up the paper and see the little gross things, though. Ugh. My sympathy.

Can you do 2 liter boxes, so you can take 1 out and scrub it with bleach (and rinse VERY well) and let it dry thoroughly every other day? That would probably work. Ugh.

[cimorene]

Thanks, that's a promising suggestion! I'm... not completely sanguine about daily scrubbing with bleach, because we have inadequate ventilation, but in principle something like that could work - maybe with a cleaning spray or vinegar (and there's always the sterilizing round in the dishwasher after scrubbing with soap if nothing else...?) At any rate, the litter trays are cheap, so I might as well get some extras to start.

[tripleransom]

I had another thought - I suppose rabbits would use pellet litter? It's pine pellets, so it keeps any odor down and the flies wouldn't like it unless it got really nasty (and then the rabbits wouldn't either) You can scoop it with a plastic scoop and take out any wet parts. It's expensive in little bags for pets, but very cheap in the 40-lb horse plastic bags, which you can get in any feed store. I have used it for the barn cats before. I know it's widely sold throughout Europe. WoodyPet is one brand, but I'm sure there are many other local ones. Pellet Bedding is the keyword.

As long as you get the trays thoroughly clean and let them dry completely, you should be good even without bleach. Flies need 1) a yucky food source and 2) moisture to breed. The big thing is to keep everything completely clean and dry.

[cimorene]

We actually use wood pellets for the cats. I didn't know they sell it for horses too! We'll have to make a visit to a feed store some time when we have a car at our disposal.

[nellacitta]

Oh man, I hate having flies and having them while also worrying about the darling bunnies, NO FUN. I'm so sorry you're having to deal with that!

For smaller more fruit-like flies, they definitely like the drains. I pour vinegar down the drains after flushing with hot water and then let them dry. I also keep a jar with some vinegar (usually a more sweet smelling one), a little soap, and water, and with plastic wrap with holes poked in over the top. They can crawl or fly in but harder to crawl out, and the soap ideally breaks the tension on the water so they drown. That is the best way of dealing with the smaller fruit flies I've ever found.

I get big gross flies (house flies?) in the summer when I open my windows (no screens) and they usually settle down and eventually die when the windows can finally be closed. I've tried to hang up sticky fly catchers, which kind of work, but not enough in my set-up to really make it a strong recommendation. It does seem like you would be see the eggs and larvae of house flies - so if you aren't seeing it in your litter boxes, that might not be the problem?

I've used hay over newspaper, and hay over newspaper after absorbent paper litter and both work pretty well.

Well, no idea if this is helpful, but GOOD LUCK. Your rabbits are lucky to have you, and I'm sure they know it despite the anger about butt touching.

[cimorene]

You know, we had some traps set up this summer and they actually caught a fair # of flies before we threw them out. The overall amount went down for a while there, but we never succeeded in getting them all, and they got worse again... but maybe it's worth a second try.

I'll also try vinegar down the drain; that could be less worrying than drain cleaner at least... thanks for the suggestions!