The Importance of Fly Control & Heat Abatement

Spring has sprung, and summer is around the corner. We need to prepare our farms and livestock for fly control and heat abatement.

Fly control can reduce stress and livestock irritation. The stress caused by flies has been known to reduce feed intake, reduce milk production, harm average daily gain and feed efficiency. Flies are also the cause of disease transmission, such as pink eye. There are several ways to reduce fly irritation. Ear tags, premise sprays, dust bags, dips and aerosol sprays, as well as feed additives. UFC does add fly control to many

of our most popular bagged feeds we purchase and can add fly control to any manufactured feeds at the request of our customers. Visit with one of our Dairy, Beef or Swine sales people for more information.

Heat stress is another production robber during the summer months. As we get closer to summer heat we encourage you to consider how to reduce heat stress. Heat stress reduces dry matter intake, average daily gain, milk production, to include butter fat and protein, and increases the animals susceptibility to disease. Some options for reducing heat stress are added shade, fresh-clean water, misters and feed additives. UFC has products that can be added to feed or top dressed to help reduce the effects of heat stress in livestock. Some products have also been effective when fed late in feeder cattle’s feeding period to reduce shipping stress and weight loss while in transit to market. Again, I would encourage our customers to have conversations with UFC’s Dairy, Beef and Swine sales people about how to effectively use these products.

In closing, as mentioned in our last Fieldviews, the volatility of feed stuffs and increased prices make adding fly control and heat abatement products much more cost effective. And we are still encountering supply chain issues and price increases, like we have never seen before. Your team at UFC has worked extremely hard to stay ahead of these issues and will remain diligent in these efforts. Communication will be very important going forward, as you anticipate your needs or increased needs, we need to be aware of that and as we anticipate supply issues we will let you know that also.

-Kelly Powell, Feed Sales Manager