Horse flies??

notjustair · Sep 5, 2015

I'm not sure if that's what you call them, but that's what we have always called them. I'm talking about the flies that are the size of a bumble bee. They are thick right now on the cattle and hogs.

Anyway, why do they follow a vehicle? I've never understood it. Look out the window when you are headed down the gravel road and they will be cruising beside you (when you are going 25-30). God help you if you have the windows down - they will be inside with you! When you stop the pickup they swarm it and run into the thing for a good 10 minutes. It doesn't matter what color of vehicle it is.

What instinct does this cover???

JerryS · Sep 5, 2015

They're also attracted to power tools.

phil_n · Sep 5, 2015

Maybe to them the noise sounds like a horse?

wjytexas · Sep 5, 2015

they smell blood thru window glass

old · Sep 5, 2015

They are drawn to heat and that is how they hunt for blood. So a car puts off heat and so they try to get blood from them.

MARK ROBKE · Sep 5, 2015

I have had them set on the tractor hood while bush hogging or mowing;I always thought they were attracted by the size/shape of the hood-similar to a cow perhaps.Mark

JD Farmer · Sep 5, 2015

I think they are really bad this year. Managed to kill a couple today in the woods before they got there meal.

showcrop · Sep 5, 2015

We seem to rarely get them around here. But we get deer flies. They seem to be around any place that has horses. They will try to bite you but they are slow so they are easy to kill. What is more annoying though is that they seem to just follow you around bumping into the back of your head.

60 acre hillside · Sep 5, 2015

I once had that problem and an ex/friend told me that they were known to follow almost anything with a donkey ancestery

glennster · Sep 5, 2015

Deer flys are ambush predators, they go after horizontal movement, like a person walking, animal running, or vehicle moving. I would guess the horse fly does the same thing.

jeffcat · Sep 6, 2015

They also go after a CO2 trail. The ones we used to have in the barn were really big black suckers. Yea they were like the size of a bumble bee. You had to hit them with a shovel to kill them!

Horse flies??

notjustair

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JerryS

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phil_n

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wjytexas

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old

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MARK ROBKE

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JD Farmer

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showcrop

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60 acre hillside

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glennster

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jeffcat

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