Baa's and Bleat's - The AASRP Podcast
Baa's and Bleat's - The AASRP Podcast
Sponsored Episode: Fly Predators by Spalding Labs
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This month, we sat down with Jessica Starcevich – a passionate entomologist and Chief Science Officer at Spalding Labs – to discuss Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and biological fly control methods for sheep and goats. Jessica provides details about effective fly control methods for ruminant operations’ unique needs. She also dives into the science behind Fly Predators - beneficial insects that kill flies before they hatch - and provides resources to understand which fly control methods will be most effective for your farm's unique needs.
Learn more about biological fly control and Spalding Labs Fly Predators here:
https://info.spalding-labs.com
Welcome back to Baas and Bleats. We're starting season four today, and our first guest I'm really excited about is Jessica Cevi. She's a passionate entomologist. I can't wait. For those of you who don't know, she is a bug lady and we're really excited about this, and she's the Chief Science Officer for Spalding Labs. Jessica has worked for Spalding Labs since 2011. She earns her bachelor's degree with double majors in environmental science and biology with a minor in history from Illinois College. Holy smokes. And then she completed her master's degree in livestock entomology at the University of Minnesota. She is back home in Illinois and apparently just took over her family farm. And in her spare time, which I bet she doesn't have a whole lot of. She loves taking pictures of insects. They are her work and her hobby. So thank you so much for joining us today, Jessica.
Jessica:Thank you for having me.
Michelle:So can we start off with an introduction to what Spalding Labs is and what they offer?
Jessica:Sure. So Spalding Labs, our primary product is our fly predators. We focus on fly control in livestock environments or other types of environments where flies are breeding, but pesticide use isn't the best option. The parasitoids that we use, they're actually a type of tiny parasitic wasp. They're known as parasitoids because they both kill flies by laying eggs in them and their larvae growing up and killing the fly that way. And they'll also eat some of the fly pupa, so they're gonna kill'em in two different ways. They don't bite or sting. They're about the size of the tip of a pencil lead and what would be a stinger in what we think of as a bees and was. In these guys, it's what's called an opoter, and it's just a hollow straw that they use to push those eggs into that fly pupa.
Michelle:That's so cool already. Is This the whole integrated pest management system this one? Little larvae?
Jessica:Not the whole system. They play a big part in it. So with integrated pest management you're looking at four areas of control. Cultural control, which is your manure management and how you're handling. This, the material that flies breed in. And then biological control, which is gonna be the fly predators. That's gonna be using any kind of natural enemy against the pests that you wanna get rid of. Mechanical control, which is like traps, anything that you're using to physically remove them from the environment. So that's all of your traps and that sort of thing. And then chemical control, which is your pesticides and the sprays that most of us are familiar with. A lot of people when they. They want a silver bullet. So that's why fly sprays and pesticides and things became really big, but insects are very adaptable and they develop resistance very quickly to a lot of those chemicals. And so then suddenly something that worked really well doesn't. So that's where using an integrated pest management program works a lot better for overall success of fly control. And then using, like focusing on biological control, like with the fly predators, that's something that the flies can't develop a resistance to because those two things are evolving against each other all the time. So that can be the backbone of your pest management program along with manure management. And then you can supplement with the mechanical or the chemical controls if there's something that happens that, that causes you to need that in addition to it.
Michelle:That's so interesting. I guess I've never really thought of. Pest management that way, but it makes a lot of sense. And in the small ruminant world we deal with. Implement resistance all the time. And so listeners are very familiar with the concept of things evolving and gaining resistance. So can you tell us a little bit more about the fly predators themselves? Are they effective at controlling flies in all livestocks operations? And also are they specific to certain species of flies?
Jessica:They are. So we use a combination of three species. I will throw the names out there. But it's okay that you don't know. They don't have common names. A lot of tiny insects never get a common name. So we use two species of meif acts and a species of pelagia. All three are native to the continental us. Really all of North America. In fact, one of the species meif acts as Za Raptor, I think it was first identified in a feedlot in Kansas. Was where it was first discovered. So these are species that are native here. You're not introducing anything new to the environment. And then they're very specific. They're one of the reasons that they're really good for biological control is'cause they are very, what's considered host specific. They can only breed on a few species of flies. House flies and biting. Stable flies are the two species that they're. Really good at controlling and can be used for biological control. There's a few other species of flies that if they're forced to, they can kill them. But I, it's not a preferred host and it's not you're not gonna get good control of say blow flies, even though they're capable of killing. But house flies and biting stable flies are the primary flies that we see in livestock. And that's. Aside from livestock, like that's food processing kind of anything where there's decaying organic material. And so fly predators are great anywhere where those two species of flies are breeding and need controlled. So it's not so much the type of livestock that you have that would affect what you use for biological control. It's gonna be what pests you have. So with it being mostly house flies and stable flies, the fly predators are wonderful for those.
Michelle:And does Spalding Labs also offer other options for operations that have other types of flies? That wouldn't be a great opportunity for fly predators?
Jessica:We do sell a couple other traps for the big horse flies and deer flies that you can use to trap those, but we don't really have much else, mainly. Generally speaking, there aren't other flies that tend to become a large problem for livestock. Aside from grazing cattle, they have a couple of specific kinds of flies, and we do have information on ways that they can manage their operation to better control those. Unfortunately, like one of the flies they have with which is face fly, it's very closely related to house flies, but different enough that. There's actually not any biological controls that work well on those types of flies. So you have to do a lot more through cultural control with the manure management and how you're handling things.
Michelle:Gotcha, gotcha. But probably not something that our small ruminant folks would really be dealing with.
Jessica:Only if they've got, cattle in addition to their small ruminants.
Michelle:Okay. Which some folks do. But are there unique fly control considerations for ruminant caretakers and specifically small ruminant caretakers?
Jessica:Particularly goats goats and sheep, both if they're gonna be in pens, but one thing, and I've had goats myself as well, we all know that they love to pull down as much hay as possible and that's what they're gonna lay on. It's what they're gonna pee and poop in. And we see it a lot with like sheep and things too, but because they pull that down, it'll look dry on top. And so a lot of people don't consider it a significant fly factory, but a lot of times underneath that is where a lot of that moisture collects. So even though they have very dry manure itself, when you combine that with urine and when you start to scrape down underneath, that tends to be really wet. So that is. Something that's pretty particular typically to sheep and goats especially when they're indoors or have feeding areas. So that's a big place of a fly concern for them. The other one that I see a lot is, people that have play equipment out for their goats. Different things for'em to jump on or climb on because a lot of times manure there too, you're raking around the sides, you're cleaning up around that. But because the pellets are so small, we'll get under the edges of those big wooden rolls or anything like that you have out there for'em. And so I've found kind quite a bit of fly breeding in places like that too. That's pretty unique to them.
Michelle:Awesome. I feel like so many veterinarians listening right now feel so validated by you saying you have to, you can't gotta clean up the hay on the ground. And we all know it looks like a mess, but it really is prime fly breeding habitat and
Jessica:absolutely
Michelle:so how can a potential customer know if fly predators is likely to work well in their particular setup?
Jessica:For most people, unless you so flies, travel about a quarter of a mile. So anybody within a quarter mile of your property, that's all who you're sharing flies with. Fly predators only travel about 150 feet, so anything you're spreading on your farm is not gonna. Move out to neighboring farms. So if you're in a situation where one of your neighbors has large numbers of animals and they're not doing anything to control their flies, then it's gonna be a little more difficult. You can still use fly predators, but you typically then have to also use some traps and things on your property line to really get decent fly control. If you don't have a lot of. People within that kind of quarter mile radius that are also producing a significant number of flies. It'll work for almost any operation. The biggest thing is just whether you're gonna have too many na flies coming in, immigrating from elsewhere. But a lot of times what we can do if you're, if people aren't sure they can give us a call one thing that. I and my team always do is we'll pull up your property on Google Earth and so we can take a look around and if there's places that we see that we aren't sure, we can map out a quarter mile, circle over the map and send you and look through your property and kind of talk about your setup and what you're doing from manure management, how you're managing your farm, and then we can help you develop an IPM program around that.
Michelle:Looking around on your website a little bit, I see that Spalding actually offers like free phone consultations.
Jessica:Oh, absolutely.
Michelle:Can you tell us a little bit more about that and how people could sign up for those?
Jessica:They can just give us a call anytime. We, they press one to get to an agent and that's it. So they don't have to sign up for it. They don't have to hit a whole bunch of numbers. They get right to one of us and basically just asking, we always encourage people to call and ask questions. You're not. Required to place an order by any means. And if someone's, if it's someone that doesn't have a lot of experience with like your type of operation, they'll get you over to one of our agents that does, we've got different agents with different specialties and anybody can call anytime and get ahold of one of us, and we can, take a look and talk over your operation, let you know what we would recommend as far as, quantities and schedule, and give you an idea of, how much fly reduction you could expect.
Michelle:Awesome. And for our listeners, the number for Spalding Labs, so you don't even have to look it up, is 1 8 8 8. 8 8, 1 5, 7 9 or they can email your group
Jessica:yep. Info@spalding-labs.com. And also just to add a little bit if you're not sure what kind of flies you have. That's another thing. We can definitely help you identify those over the phone most of the time. F. Different species of flies have very different behaviors. So a lot of times just by discussing how the flies are behaving, where you're seeing them, where you see'em on the animals, how they're, how they respond to certain situations. We can usually identify the fly species you have so that. We know that we're targeting the right thing and if for some reason we're still having trouble doing that, we encourage people to send in photos. I'm regularly looking at photos people send in. We might have to ask you to change something a little bit or try to get a different photo at a different angle. But we really encourage that'cause we wanna make sure that. If we're setting you up for a program, we're setting you up for success. So we wanna make sure that we've identified the flies that are a problem, made sure that we've gone over everything to make sure that you can have really good control of those flies.
Michelle:That's fabulous. What great, like customer service and dedication, that's. Really exciting to hear about. I feel like a lot of small ruminant practitioners and owners feel like they're not a priority in a lot of industries. And you call tech support for the cattle drugs and they're like, oh, I can't really help you'cause you're not on label. But it's really nice to hear that there's so much support there and. Folks will be able to get some personalized information and help figuring this out for themselves.
Jessica:Absolutely.
Michelle:That's,
Jessica:and most of our staff do have animals themselves. So I know, we've got sunny has some sheep and then Mackenzie's got sheep. So we've got several people that have sheep on board. A few people have some goats, a lot of horse people. The vast majority of us are animal people, so we are familiar too with just what it is to be on farm life.'cause there's definitely a, I think we've all had a do as I say, not as I do moment.
Michelle:Definitely
Jessica:not
Michelle:me.
Jessica:There are not enough hours in the day to, have everything perfectly clean the way we would all love all the time. So definitely no judgment on that. At all. And that's the kind of thing that we can help you determine whether it's better, do you get more fly predators'cause you don't have time to get something fully cleaned all the time, or can you up what you're doing in manure management and not have to spend as much on the fly predators so we can help you find those decisions on what's best for you, both economically and time-wise. one of the biggest questions I get, especially from small ruminants since they like to chew on everything, is what happens if they eat them. There are no problems. It's no different than if they eat like a grasshopper or an ant or anything like that. It's not going to harm them in any way if for some reason they do consume them. So I know that is a very popular question with most livestock owners and especially goats and cheese.
Michelle:Perfect. I feel like that really speaks to like the amount of experience you have with those species and the amount of folks that are already using these on those species. We do have a decent international audience. Is fly predators available in countries outside the us?
Jessica:It's not, but most of the time if people call that are from outside the us like I already, I know one in sector in Canada that we recommend and. All of us, like I said, we're really helpful people. We will try and see if there's an insectory in their, that like ships to their country. Because the species, like they are only native to the Western hemisphere. So we don't do anything. They exist because of other releases and stuff like that in the eastern hemisphere. And then we used to send to Canada, but because of the length of time, it gets caught up in customs. A lot of'em were arriving dead. So we just, we try to find other insectaries in other countries that we know produce a good species. Species can really matter. So when it comes to biological control of flies there's been a ton of studies. I think my lit review was over like 50 studies over the years looking at different species of parasitoids. Using them in biological control situations. The species we use have all performed really well in, in those, but there are some species that have not done so well, like nasia vitro, panis or Papo. And there are other companies out there that sell biological control that. Sometimes use those species. So one of my recommendations when you're looking for a company to go with or anything like that is always ask questions and make sure that the company you're buying from will let you know what species they are sending you. So that you always know what you're getting. I would say anyone that is not upfront about what's included in their product is something I would personally steer away, steer away from.
Michelle:Good to know about red flags and what we do wanna look for.
Jessica:Ironically, the first year of my study the bugs I was getting got contaminated with Nasia and I was releasing 1.3 million females in. A 12 by 12 betted pack. And I never, in a 12 week study and 20 pins releasing that many per pin I only ever recovered one from a pupa, like when I then go collect pupa. That species, I only ever collected one in a wild caught fly pupa. So even releasing that many, they were. Definitely not doing the job. And we, when I identified that, we let the insectory know, they fixed it right away. And then I had a 70% parasitism rate after that. Just in that short window, like of that study. So it really highlighted the fact to me that species matters.
Michelle:That's so interesting. I guess I've never really thought of that So Spalding offers more than just fly predators, right? Can you tell us a little bit about what other products they provide and what their function is?
Jessica:Sure. So aside from the fly powders, we have our bye-bye odor, which is a microbial odor eliminator. It will get rid of any biological odor, so urine, feces, sweat you can use it like in pins to get rid of, reduce ammonia. I use it a lot on my boots and a lot of my equipment. And like horse blankets. I also use it on my dog beds and carpets. So it's a really great product for just overall odor control. Like I said, if anything that's a biological based odor it's not great on like Musk, so it's not gonna be what you wanna grab if you're, if somebody got skunked. But as far as anything else works really well.
Michelle:How about urine stains, like potty training puppies
Jessica:it works really well. It's not gonna remove stains, but it does a phenomenal job of getting rid of odors, which is, especially when you're potty training pets, is what draws them back. Or if you have a cat that's starting to miss the litter box. So using bye-bye odor in the areas where they've had an accident after you've cleaned it up will help get rid of that odor so that they're not drawn back to that place again and again.
Michelle:Very cool. That, yeah, that's definitely super important. What about fly repellent or pesticides or anything like that? Do you guys have any options for that?
Jessica:We do. We have our Bye-bye insects, which is a fly repellent, so it's not gonna kill anything. It's essential oil based and it will repel like house flies and biting stable flies for about six to seven hours. And it'll repel mosquitoes and ticks for about four to five hours. And you can use that on yourself as well as. It's labeled for human use and horse use. And you can use it, in a small area that you need to keep flies out of. I sprayed on like my picnic tables before. We have dinners and stuff outside. Being in essential oil based, it can cause some staining on like white hair or like white clothing. You can definitely wash it out of clothes, but it doesn't wash easily out of white hair. So it does have to wear off that way, but it works phenomenally well. I actually was part of developing that product and to be totally honest, going in as an essential oil product, I really thought we were gonna be lucky to get three or four hours, and it did get tested. Very hard in real world environment.'cause I tested on my farm in Illinois. So we've got, midsummer, it's about 70, 80% humidity, 108 heat index. And it was still lasting like. I did counts for eight hours and we, it was still lasting on most of my horses up to six hours. And then I am a mosquito magnet. They love my blood, they ignore my husband, and so it is on the boat and in my car every time that I go, almost anywhere in the summer to use it on myself for mosquitoes.
Michelle:Awesome. That's really good to know. Sounds like a really helpful product. Especially for folks that are looking for an alternative to,
Jessica:more of the chemical type phrase?
Michelle:So this isn't something that's been like, evaluated by the EPA or anything like that?
Jessica:No. The, our formulation is exempt from registration with EPA because we, they have a 25 B is what it's called. If all of the ingredients in your product are. On that list that they have, then you don't have to register with the EPA. We do have to register with any states. Each state determines whether they require you to register a 25 B product with them or not. And so all of the states that do require registration, we are registered in all of those states.
Michelle:Great. There are some tricky rules about using pesticides or repellent or insect management products on food producing animals, which small ruminants are considered, so I'm sure you know that already. So just wanna make sure that everyone understands how exactly it's categorized and what rules they have to adhere to
Jessica:We have not tested this on small ruminants, so we aren't labeled for that. It's mainly, like I said, human and horse use is what we're currently labeled for. So just be aware of that, if you're using it anywhere else.
Michelle:Perfect. Thanks for clarifying. That's definitely an important thing. But it works on picnic tables, like Yes. I'm sure it would work on stall mats and things like that too. All right, so what should a listener do if they're interested in fly predators or any of Spalding Labs, other products or services?
Jessica:I would definitely recommend going to check out our website. We've got a lot of great information there and, anything that you've got questions about, I really encourage people to call us. That is why we are here, is to answer questions, make sure that people are understanding how to use the product.'Cause it's for a lot of people, it's the first time that they're gonna use something like biological control and getting used to how to use that can. Takes some time and it just helps to talk to someone. If you're not sure or you've got any questions, I really recommend calling'cause we have a, like I said, a great team that can really answer a lot of questions and understand the environment that you're dealing with. And then like I said, our website has a lot of great information as well and you can always email us as well with any questions.
Michelle:Awesome. One other question that came up in my mind is what kind of effect do fly predators have on the normal flora and fauna of the soil? I know there's concern about how using chemicals can affect, bugs that live in the ground and soil health and things like that. So have you guys done any work on that?
Jessica:They really don't have any impact.'cause like I said, the three species we use are native to the continental us. So you already have them on your farm. They're part of kind of the natural environment. And because they're Soho specific, they're not affecting any other like beneficial insects like dung, beetles or anything like that you have that's also working to make sure that soil quality stays high and. There, there's really no negative impact to them. With something like our program, it's considered augmentative biological control where we're adding to a natural population so that you get more human happy, fly control instead of nature, happy fly control. In nature, they kill like the natural balance of things. They'll kill about five to 10% of. The fly population. So with a program like ours, we kind of force that fly predator population up to be really high so that you can get more, like 80% control of flies most of the time. But no negative impacts on other beneficials or any other insects or anything like that around.
Michelle:Fantastic. I'm excited for our listeners to get more familiar with this product I'm also really excited to announce that Spalding Labs is sponsoring this podcast episode. And anyone listening today that wants to order their first order of fly predators can enter the promo code. Baa 26, that's B-A-A 26 at checkout and you'll get 10% off your your first order of fly predators. Again, the website is info do spalding labs.com. You can check that out or you can call Jessica. She's been lovely to chat with. And that number again is 1 8 8 8 8 8 0 1 5 7 9. I think this sounds like a really promising option for our small ruminate producers. Thank you so much for your time and all of your wisdom and knowledge. I've learned so much and really enjoyed chatting with you.
Jessica:I really appreciate it. It's been a great time. Thank you so much.
