UkPigeonRacing

Here I am again asking you guys for some advice please.
I had a yb come back 2 days late from a chuck and yes, he had been hawked with all of his secondary feathers missing of one wing and the side of his breast cut and scraped clean of feathers. Looks like he was a lucky lad.
Anyway, he had one of those feckin orrible pigeon flies on him, so Im guessing he would have been sat among feralsbefore getting the strength and courage to strike for home. Anyway, this is the first time I have encountered one of these orrible feckin things and after finally catching it and squeezing it between my thumb and finger nail, i realised you cant kill the bastard things and it jumped over on to me - god, they are quick! Anyway, I managed to brush it off.
My questions are - how long can they live for off of a pigeon and how far can they travel off of a pigeon as this all happened in my garden and I am worried it will get to my loft about 12ft away.
Also, if it is still around, how do I get rid of it.
I could be wrong, but it appeared to be feeding off the birds wound....?
For me, I was straight in the shower - uugghh.

It will be a flat fly. They are very poor at actual flying. Only ever seen one on a bird once, and your right they are VERY quick. The good news is they breed one at a time so you won't be over run with them. If you spray both birds and loft that should be the end of it.
https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/li ... on_fly.htm

Thanks guys, my birds are one spotted every 7 or 8weeks during racing and only just been done last week prior to being lost for 2 days. What is it that I should spray with that I can use on the birds and the loft. At the mo, I spray all horizontal surfaces with dettol once a week but somehow I dont think thats enough to kill these feckin horrible little bastard things.
Yes King it is like flat so I guess you are right.
I have treated the wound with 'gentian blue' which is what usually works for this kind of injury but not sure if it has any anti parasitic qualities.
Looks like im going to need to spend a couple of hours on the tinternet to find out a bit more about these truly horrible things. My worry is that I couldn t kill the bastard thing.

Diamond Dave wrote: Sat Jul 20, 2024 12:42 am Thanks guys, my birds are one spotted every 7 or 8weeks during racing and only just been done last week prior to being lost for 2 days. What is it that I should spray with that I can use on the birds and the loft. At the mo, I spray all horizontal surfaces with dettol once a week but somehow I dont think thats enough to kill these feckin horrible little bastard things.
Yes King it is like flat so I guess you are right.
I have treated the wound with 'gentian blue' which is what usually works for this kind of injury but not sure if it has any anti parasitic qualities.
Looks like im going to need to spend a couple of hours on the tinternet to find out a bit more about these truly horrible things. My worry is that I couldn t kill the bastard thing.

There's a link in my reply that will tell you more Dave.

Thanks yet again everyone for your help, i'll keep a very vigilant eye on all my birds now.