Register

Login

Vet Times logo
+
  • View all news
  • Vets news
  • Vet Nursing news
  • Business news
  • + More
    • Videos
    • Podcasts
    • Crossword
  • View all clinical
  • Small animal
  • Livestock
  • Equine
  • Exotics
  • All Jobs
  • Your ideal job
  • Post a job
  • Career Advice
  • Students
About
Contact Us
For Advertisers
NewsClinicalJobs
Vet Times logo

Vets

All Vets newsSmall animalLivestockEquineExoticWork and well-beingOpinion

Vet Nursing

All Vet Nursing newsSmall animalLivestockEquineExoticWork and well-beingOpinion

Business

All Business newsHuman resourcesBig 6SustainabilityFinanceDigitalPractice profilesPractice developments

+ More

VideosPodcastsDigital EditionCrossword

The latest veterinary news, delivered straight to your inbox.

Choose which topics you want to hear about and how often.

Vet Times logo 2

About

The team

Advertise with us

Recruitment

Contact us

Vet Times logo 2

Vets

All Vets news

Small animal

Livestock

Equine

Exotic

Work and well-being

Opinion

Vet Nursing

All Vet Nursing news

Small animal

Livestock

Equine

Exotic

Work and well-being

Opinion

Business

All Business news

Human resources

Big 6

Sustainability

Finance

Digital

Practice profiles

Practice developments

Clinical

All Clinical content

Small animal

Livestock

Equine

Exotics

Jobs

All Jobs content

All Jobs

Your ideal job

Post a job

Career Advice

Students

More

All More content

Videos

Podcasts

Digital Edition

Crossword


Terms and conditions

Complaints policy

Cookie policy

Privacy policy

fb-iconinsta-iconlinkedin-icontwitter-iconyoutube-icon

© Veterinary Business Development Ltd 2025

IPSO_regulated

11 Mar 2020

Forget coals to Newcastle… vet sells ‘flies’ to farmers

Miniature parasitic wasps actively seek out the pupae of nuisance, biting flies that spread the bacteria responsible for summer mastitis and New Forest eye on farms.

author_img

David Woodmansey

Job Title



Forget coals to Newcastle… vet sells ‘flies’ to farmers

Spalangia cameroni on a house fly pupa.

An enterprising farm vet practice has established a thriving business selling “flies” to dairy farmers.

Although branded Friendly Flies, the insects are actually miniature parasitic wasps (Muscidifurax raptor and Spalangia cameroni), which actively seek out the pupae of nuisance, biting flies that spread the bacteria responsible for summer mastitis and New Forest eye on farms.

Once located, the friendly flies lay their own eggs inside the nuisance fly pupae. When those eggs hatch, the parasitic wasp kills and eats the developing nuisance fly maggot, and then hatches to continue the cycle of predating on more nuisance flies.

All-natural

The all-natural parasitic fly control solution, which can help reduce on-farm insecticidal and antibiotic use, and increase biodiversity, is being offered by LLM Farm Vets – one of the first farm-only vets in England, which now looks after some 50,000 cows at five sites in the north-west.

Vet Tom Jackson of LLM Farm Vets explained the practice held a Defra licence to import the flies from the US, where they are extensively used to control nuisance fly species on poultry, as well as at ruminant and pig farms.

The friendly fly species are native to the UK, but naturally found only in tiny numbers that are insufficient to be effective on large nuisance fly populations on farms, so their release does not pose any environmental threat.

Mr Jackson said he understood LLM Farm Vets to be the only company supplying friendly flies to the ruminant sector in the UK.

  • Read the full story in the 10 March issue of Veterinary Times.