Pre-Seasoned Beef: Feeding Garlic To Control Cattle Flies

I like to rub some garlic on my steak before tossing it on the grill. But have you ever thought about pre-seasoning your beef? I’m talking about feeding garlic to cattle. Seriously.

It’s starting to warm up a little, and I’m noticing a few flies on my cattle. Flies cause stress. Cattle become restless and never lay down, constantly moving and swiping the flies with their tails. When an infestation gets bad enough, cows lose weight. Milk production decreases. Young cattle grow slowly.

So now is the time of year when I start to think about treating my cattle for flies. In the past, I’ve typically used liquid pour-on chemicals. Some folks use fly control mineral feed or molasses tubs with fly control ingredients. The problem with these products, in my view, is that they also harm the dung beetle population.

Dung beetles break apart cow patties and bury them in the ground. This greatly improves soil health by adding nutrients and organic matter. It also helps to control the fly population. Flies lay their eggs in cow patties. Those eggs hatch into larvae, which live in the patties until they become adult flies. So if you use pour-on fly control, you’re killing the dung beetles. Then your cow patties take forever to break down and become part of the soil. In the meantime, those patties are breeding more and more flies, requiring you to use more and more fly control product. It’s a vicious cycle.

Then there’s the issue of resistance to certain chemicals over time. I’ve heard this can be a problem with pyrethrinbased fly control products. And some products are not effective on all types of flies.

Recently, I’ve been hearing a lot of talk in the regenerative agriculture world about using garlic for fly control. It supposedly works through a completely different mode of action. Chemical pesticides disrupt the fly’s life cycle in one way or another. Garlic works by repelling flies. Apparently, flies hate the smell of the sulfur compounds in garlic. Indeed, the garlic plant developed these compounds through millions of years of natural selection precisely for this reason – to repel potential predators. Supposedly, cattle excrete some of those sulfur compounds through the skin, and this repels the flies.

There have been a few scientific studies on garlic for fly control. The results are mixed. But the people who use it regularly seem to swear by it. Proponents say garlic not only repels all types of flies, but mosquitoes and ticks as well.

A few companies have started producing mineral supplement products with garlic added for fly control. But I think it’s easy enough to mix your own. I normally supplement my cattle with Purina Wind and Rain Mineral. I’m going to start mixing some garlic with it.

The sources I’ve read recommend granulated garlic – the same kind you might use to season a brisket. I suppose garlic powder would blow away in the wind or not mix as well. Most sources recommend mixing it with mineral or salt at a rate of two percent. So for a 50 lb. sack of mineral, you would mix in one pound of granulated garlic. Has anyone around here ever tried using garlic for fly control? I’d love to hear about you experience. Email me at andy@fayettecountyrecord. com