Statistics


For this next segment I will be using the most common and accepted averages and statistics for certain characteristics of the housefly. I will include a low and high number and then I will take the mean average for those figures.


Musca domestica (common housefly) lives approximately 10 – 25 days. (Average 17 days) The female, during her lifetime will lay between 300 – 900 eggs. (Average 600 eggs) The weight of flies has been measured from 37 – 43 milligrams. (Average 40 milligrams)
The next sentence will have two important facts to keep in mind. (1) “As long as there is a food source, (2) the majority of houseflies lives and dies within ¼ mile of where they were hatched.” To better understand why those two facts are important, picture your house as the epicenter for flies and then imagine a circle that radiates from your house only 1,320 feet in all directions. Keep in mind that for the vast majority of common houseflies, that boundary (1/4 mile) is their whole world.
Ask yourself the following question. Do your neighbor’s houses that are within that 1,320 feet boundary have “food sources” for the hated Musca domestica? If you answer yes to that question, and of course, yes is the correct answer, then a logical conclusion should follow. The flies that were hatched in someone else’s backyard will live their life annoying those people without having a need to invade your own backyard.
That is why my flytraps are so successful. By the multiplied thousands, they trap, kill and therefore prevent flies from being able to reproduce. That is why it is important to set several traps around your yard and if possible, get them out in the early springtime. By enacting such a plan you are dealing with a finite and manageable number of these pests and not a pestilence that seems to have infinite numbers.
Flies are not just a nuisance or merely annoying, they have been known to carry disease organisms that cause: salmonella, dysentery, typhoid fever, anthrax, cholera, tuberculosis, ophthalmia, parasitic worms and summer diarrhea, just to name a few. Also, in your livestock and even your backyard dog they can cause myiasis. These are parasites (fly maggots) that live under the skin and feed off of living tissue.