Does anyone have a recipe for or know of any natural mixture that can be used as an attractant to draw houseflies and/or fruit flies into a trap? We are inundated with flies during the warmer months and also have fruit trees in the yard. I have tried sugar water with applecider vinegar; water, applesauce, and honey and several other mixtures to no avail. The traps sold in farming supply stores are pretty expensive so I have made some from 2lt. Soda bottles but cannot find a good mixture for the attractant. I would appreciate any/all suggestions!
Thanks!

Try an small piece of hot dog or lunch meat.

Raw meat would probably be more attractive because the smell would be more potent. You might also try something like the gelatin from a potroast. Ballenger's idea would probably be bearable longer, so good on you B1.

Old fashioned fly strips used a glue made from horses' hooves, which is why I mentioned the gelatin.

The absolute best attractant for your fly catcher is... and this is in all seriousness.. feces.:eek: And the best feces for attracting flies is human feces as this has the most pungent odor. Obviously, you may not want to use this attractant, so the next best attractant is canned dog food. After that, try raw ground beef. The best attractants are the ones that have some solid, but highly moist texture to them. This makes the food not only easy to eat (flies lick their food) but gives a good setting for laying eggs which flies like to bury in the food they eat so the larvae will have food when hatched. The next quality for a good fly attractant is high protein content, especially for female flies who need the protein to create the over 500 eggs they will lay in their lifetime. The third is a strong odor. The strong odor attracts the flies to the food, but the males also use it as lures for female flies and so use the area around pungent objects as mating grounds.

Using the bottle you described is a humane way of getting rid of flies as they can be relocated to another area. The best place to relocate flies is at land fills.:)

Good answer, antn.

Moist, pungent, protein. Absolutely right.

Hence the other answers... hot dog, beef gelatin, raw meat. Note that these offer less harborage to parasites of humans than feces or dog food, which could cause more problems than they solve.

Try

60% powdered egg
25% yeast
15% sodium bicarbonate

Mixed in 50 parts water.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kablooie

Try

60% powdered egg
25% yeast
15% sodium bicarbonate

mixed in 50 parts water.

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Add a sneeze to make your own flu vaccine, too.