Every spring, the status quo Whiz Kids start talking about horn fly control. Until this year, these discussions quickly morphed into lengthy comparisons of toxic chemicals. I’m sure that discussion is just around the corner.

There has never been and there never will be a chemical to control horn flies that the flies have not or will not become resistant to. As a result, the horn fly problem has done nothing but get worse for the last 80 years – and fly control will continue to be an annual discussion among the Whiz Kids.

I commend the Whiz Kids, however, for not discussing toxic chemicals in their most recent “Fly Control” thread. Instead of comparing toxic chemicals, they are building bird houses for tree swallows. Tree swallows are very accomplished arial insectivores, meaning they catch and eat insects while in flight.

Unfortunately, since horn flies never leave the cow except to deposit eggs in fresh manure and since tree swallows don’t live where cows live, they will not have any effect on the horn fly population. They can, however, be effective against other flies and mosquitoes around the farmstead.

Solving the horn fly problem can only be accomplished through genetics. We need to produce cattle that have a bred-in resistance to horn flies. All of the bulls in our Texas and Missouri bull sales have been evaluated and scored for genetic fly resistance. Since the heritability of horn fly resistance is very high, this is something you can improve dramatically in a short period of time.

While other bull producers continue to treat the symptoms of the horn fly problem with toxic chemicals, Pharo Cattle Company™ is helping you solve the problem with genetics – and it is working! PCC-influenced cattle definitely have fewer flies than mainstream cattle.

You can use our unique Quick Sort program to sort for Texas and Missouri bulls with fly resistance scores of 4 and/or 5. A whopping 94% of the Heat-Tolerant Bulls in our Texas and Missouri bull sales have a fly resistance score of 4 or better.