Thanks City of Ottawa and green bins...

[Greatwhite]

Not sure if you guys have all noticed the HUGE population boom of houseflies since we started the green bin program here...  I certainly have.  I'm constantly after them with my electronic fly zapper racket.

Well, today - I found a new reason to hate flies.

My poor little beagle had a rather large (quarter size) lump on her side.  I had previously lost a dog to a cancerous lump, so immediately inspected it and got prepared for an emergency vet visit.  Well, closer inspection revealed that the lump looked like a big zit with a white head, ready to pop... (sorry for the graphic description)  So, I gave it a little squeeze, and the white part came out a little further. 

It looked like a small stick, really.  I figured that she had rolled around in the garden and got poked.  So I squeezed a little more, and the thing popped out and fell to the floor...... and then it started wriggling around.  Yes, it was a fly larva - aka - a maggot.

Phoned the vet, who conveniently closed 20 minutes earlier, and then called around to other vets.  Finally got ahold of one who explained that it is a common thing with rabbits to get bit by a fly and have eggs inserted in the wound.  If my dog was around a rabbit hole, there was a chance that was what happened.

Well, no rabbit holes around.  Just MILLIONS of flies.

Google revealed that it takes 8hrs for a fly egg to hatch inside an animal's skin and grow to the 1/4" size that I found.

I was told that it would need to get looked at immediately to get cleaned out and prevent infection.  So, $230 later, the vet had sprayed around inside the wound with iodine and wants a followup visit monday.

So ya... If you have dogs, watch for flies landing on them and shoo them off when possible!!!  Had I not noticed this, and it went untreated, it could have been fatal.  Fortunately it was in a pretty visible spot... she had rubbed her black fur down to the skin, and it was in a short-fur-area.  And it helps that she's slim enough that I would notice a lump like that...

I had NEVER heard of anything like this before.

[smalltownfan]

Sounds more like a Bot fly or Warble fly larvae. They are a real nuisance in the country. But you're right, the increase of houseflies is a part of the problem because the Bot uses house flies as the intermediatary host to spread their eggs. Check out Wikipedia

[Greatwhite]

Sick - ya, that's what I saw.  I just looked at photos a video... and the same stomach turning occurred.

[dan2x38]

Wow glad you found it Gerry before it became serious. I never knew this that is scary.  We do not add scarps to the green bins after about 6 months just yard waste. There were to many flies and tons of maggots in the bin. On City site says treat with bleach but it was not enough they kept returning.

[Greatwhite]

I'm not Gerry - but I'm still glad I found it, too.  My wife said that she saw it and just thought it was a bug bite earlier in the day because Abby was chewing at her side a bit.  She was actually on the phone with a friend when she noticed it, and the friend confirmed the estimated time.

3hrs later, the lump was very big and I popped the critter out.

According to the vet, Abby had a low fever, which could have been caused by this "bite".  I'm thinking that the Bot fly egg was actually on a mosquito.  It appears there was just one "critter" and not the full on brood that I imagined when I first saw it.

Today, she's as happy-go-lucky as always.  She has antibiotics just in case, and we'll be bringing her in to our regular vet Monday for a better cleaning/inspection.  We have some dental work to do anyways, so might as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

There is a service that you can pay something like $12 a month, and this truck will come around behind the green bin collector guy and spray out the bin with disinfectant.  I just hose mine out and use liners as much as possible.  That still doesn't stop the maggots from appearing 1 day after the first little bag gets dropped in.

[Laura]

I'm glad your dog is well and recovering, that sounds like a disturbing experience.
On the fly population, I don't find that the fly population has increased, rather the evidence of them can be more concentrated in one place.
We all put the food waste in the garbage before, so we would have had the flies in our garbage cans, but we didn't notice them as much.

[Greatwhite]

I'm glad your dog is well and recovering, that sounds like a disturbing experience.
On the fly population, I don't find that the fly population has increased, rather the evidence of them can be more concentrated in one place.
We all put the food waste in the garbage before, so we would have had the flies in our garbage cans, but we didn't notice them as much.

Well.. Our garbage can is in the garage, and when food waste went in there, there were some flies - but nowhere near the number we get on our green bin.  We have to keep the green bin outside, out our side door because the smell gets so foul.  Every time something has to go in the bin, I have to go out the door and close it behind me.  Then quickly pop the lid open on the green bin and close it as fast as I can to keep the swarm of flies contained.

I have a Skeeter Vac mosquito trap in the far corner of the yard, and the sticky part of the trap is 99% covered in flies.  Before green bins, we had mosquitoes and moths mostly, and the odd bird.

Everyone I know in Orleans (at least) complains that they are constantly killing flies, as if they lived in a farm house.  Some hadn't really put 2&2 together to see the green bin as a large contributor...

[dan2x38]

I think it must be b/c they are so tightly sealed in comparison to a good old garbage can. The tight lid keeps in the odour and the flies. I can't see why one container over another would be worse so it has to be the design not just b/c it is green... LOL Either way I agree they seem to create more flies and stink. I do not remember seeing maggots like there are in the green bin in any garbage can I've ever had?

[Darth]

we have to keep our compost in the freezer till garbage day, it has helped with the flies, but if you dont have room in your chest freezer...I agree its a nusiance with all these darn flies!!

[smalltownfan]

This summer I've done a lot of cutting and sawing with cedar. The sawdust is great stuff. I throw a few handfulls in to cover the bags and it really seems to work against the flies. I wonder if the lumberyards throw out all their sawdust? I'm going to try and get a few buckets full.

[brotherluv]

I never used mine when I was living downtown...I also never had problems with flies. 

[Greatwhite]

Something that helps as well is lawn clippings..  Mow the lawn, dump a layer of grass over the bags in the green bin - and it cuts the flies down a bit.  I just keep forgetting to do that.

[washefuzzy]

Ashes from a wood stove might help but who uses their wood stove in the summer and not many of us have wood stoves.

[Hookup]

glad to hear your dog is ok....

I wouldn't have said anything till i read this thread, but there does seem to be quite a large number of files around this year... heat + greenbins maybe?

IMHO, greenbins were a bad idea from the beginning...  composting is excellent, but on postage-stamp sized lots there jsut isn't enough room to do it correctly... so they have us put it in bins... and they are a disaster... smelly gross messes that need to be picked up much more often than every 2 weeks... heaven forbid you miss a pickup...

we do it... trying to be good citizens and all... but it's with a scowl.

[Greatwhite]

They pick them up every week in the summer, which is good because of the smell - and they pick up yard waste at the same time every week.  Yard waste was every other week until green bins came out.

In the winter, the smell isn't as bad because of the cold.  So our bin stays in the garage...  I'm just thankful that I have a shady side of my house that no one ever goes near, and a side door.

Every week, my routine is the same...  Hold my breath while I drag my maggot colony of a green bin to the curb.  After it's emptied, I hose it out and spray it down with fly killer Raid.  Then I spray my Raid around the area where I had hosed out the bin, to try to kill off a bunch of the flies that accumulated there.

Last time I was at Canadian Tire, I found that SOMEONE is going to be rich with the "Compost Deodorizer" that they are selling.  It was beside the green bin bags, and there were no less than 5 people grabbing basket fulls any time I walked by.