wtnhunt Posted June 23, 2015 Report Share Posted June 23, 2015 Bad bad year here for flies. Past two winters have seen plenty of cool weather, but this past spring was pretty darned wet. Folks blaming the wet spring for the insects being worse than normal. Deer flies, horse flies, and house flies too. Even in town at local businesses. Having the worst season I can recall, EVER. Poor cows are covered up, keep them wormed which is supposed to help, but even so the flies are horrible so looking at some other options. Picked up a fly control mineral block to try to see if it might help, gonna have to spray them too. Noticed fly control blocks for sheeps and goats, dunno if deer would see any benefit or even if there is a safe block for them? Anyhoo, might be a real bad year for ehd here, very unfortunate and sad to see. What's it looking like elsewhere? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin R10 man Posted June 23, 2015 Report Share Posted June 23, 2015 bugs seem to be normal here...am seeing hornetsnests already, which we usually dont have until july or august. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun_300 Posted June 24, 2015 Report Share Posted June 24, 2015 Seems about normal here too. Mosquitoes are crazy at dusk now. Quite few house flies too, the cat takes care of those. She is constantly jumping after them and chasing them around the house lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhino Posted June 24, 2015 Report Share Posted June 24, 2015 From what I've read, EHD is generally worse during drought years. Doesn't seem to make sense but that's what they say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhunt Posted June 24, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 24, 2015 From what I've read, EHD is generally worse during drought years. Doesn't seem to make sense but that's what they say. I have read that and heard that too. May have to do with animals concentrating to limited water sources where the flies also congregate. I don't know for sure Al, but seems to me the worse the flies the worse the transmission issues would be. Maybe abrown will give us some insight here. Of course this is still just June. No telling what the weather will be in August and September. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MUDRUNNER Posted June 24, 2015 Report Share Posted June 24, 2015 That's exactly what I have read on EHD also. Less water means more deer drink from the same source, plus more of the muddy bank is exposed which is where the midges live. We have had a few consecutive bad years here with dry and hot summers and EHD has really taken a toll. So far this year our temps are a little below normal and moisture is a good bit above normal. This year so far mosquitos are what seems to be worse than normal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerClay Posted June 25, 2015 Report Share Posted June 25, 2015 Biting flies have been normal here in New York. However one thing I noticed that was different is almost no bees, hornets or wasps. Not sure if it was our hard winter or what. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbHunterNY Posted June 25, 2015 Report Share Posted June 25, 2015 my understanding is the EHD isn't like CWD were it can be transmitted from deer to deer by prions so readily in a d. biting bugs are the vector of transport. when draughts happen a couple things occur. animals like deer congregate with means infected bugs can easily get from deer to deer to infect them and seem like the disease is "spreading". also those biting bugs rely on standing water to breed. less sources of water to breed in means more likely infected bugs are present in any given source of water. I have a couple theories. we don't seem to have EHD here though to test it which is very fortunate so i'm okay with the situation. if you have watering holes on your grounds keeping them opened up so a breeze or wind can make it difficult for the bugs to fly to were they want could probably help. otherwise man made sources like spring fed tubs with an outlet help. if digging a watering hole make it narrow and longer with an inlet and outlet to create constant flow. solutions aren't really solutions to eliminate the problem. EHD will still pop up I'd imagine but it'd most definitely help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhunt Posted June 25, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2015 Yes, ehd is transmitted by small biting flies called midges. All the early rain/water made for excess prime breeding grounds for insects and so they seem to have exploded. At this point, after yet more flooding Tuesday, we again have excess puddling and standing water, but also have July type heat indexes hitting between 105-110. The insect problem here is bad now and only going to get worse as we go into the months that we typically see drier weather. Hope i am wrong, but afraid there will be a fairly significant number of ehd die offs in west TN this summer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maine Hntr Posted June 27, 2015 Report Share Posted June 27, 2015 Got wicked caterpillars here, trees look like fall, never got a good spring growth and anything that grew has been eaten by caterpillars, pine tree needles included, I literally have pine trees that are bare and the ground is covered in needles from the caterpillars, never seen anything like it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhunt Posted June 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2015 Japanese beetles been real bad this year too. In all our fruit trees and noticing maples are getting hammered by them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turkeygirl Posted June 29, 2015 Report Share Posted June 29, 2015 Lots of rain here, have not seen many japanese beetles or june bugs. But mosquitoes are present, not much in the way of black flies yet though. Haven't seen any tent worm caterpillar nests. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhunt Posted July 29, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 29, 2015 Flies here are still very bad. Ran across this at tndeer.com on the faq's : " Blue Tongue Disease Blue tongue (BT) and Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) are the two forms of Hemorrhagic Disease (HD). Both forms of HD are spread by a midge (a small biting fly). Although HD does not spread from deer to deer, high concentrations of deer are known to increase the likelihood of an outbreak (simply because there are more hosts for the midges to feed on). Weather conditions also play a part in outbreaks, with warm, wet summers contributing to outbreaks (good conditions for midge reproduction)." Maybe a bit of misinformation out there but makes more sense to me that more of the bad bugs equates to more potential problems. With whatever the spring and this summer has been pretty wet and is now excessively warm. Looks like we have a poor fawn survival rate specific at least to this area as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arrow32 Posted July 31, 2015 Report Share Posted July 31, 2015 Not noticing more flies or anything of the such here or maybe I stink to bad to notice.LOL Hope it doesn't cause any problems of anything Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aldridgem1 Posted August 21, 2015 Report Share Posted August 21, 2015 If that's the case that deer flies spread EHD, im in trouble around here. Seems like every trail cam pic I have gotten this year they are covered in flies. Never seen anything like it to be honest. Will post some pics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhunt Posted August 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2015 If that's the case that deer flies spread EHD' date=' im in trouble around here. Seems like every trail cam pic I have gotten this year they are covered in flies. Never seen anything like it to be honest. Will post some pics.[/quote'] No, deer flies do not spread ehd. Ehd is spread by small biting flies called midges. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhunt Posted August 22, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2015 Hearing reports of some ehd casualties here this summer. Gonna be interesting to see how the numbers look this season. Deer numbers seem to continue to be down, poor fawn survival rate this summer too. Maybe if the harvest numbers are down again the state will re-evaluate the liberal limits in some places. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MUDRUNNER Posted August 24, 2015 Report Share Posted August 24, 2015 Hearing reports of some ehd casualties here this summer. Gonna be interesting to see how the numbers look this season. Deer numbers seem to continue to be down' date=' poor fawn survival rate this summer too. Maybe if the harvest numbers are down again the state will re-evaluate the liberal limits in some places. [/quote'] Man that's a bummer if that is the case. It can take a few years to recover from a round of EHD. We've been fortunate this summer as far as the weather goes. Moisture has been a little above normal and temps a little below normal. Shoot it was 55 degrees when i woke up this morning! I think we are still a year or two away from having decent numbers coming back from consecutive years of EHD a few years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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