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Housefly in the chicken coop

Parasitic diseases

Housefly (Musca domestica Linnaeus)

Musca domestica L, fly home:

The housefly, Musca domestica L., It is a common pest found in both farms and homes. This species is always found in close association with humans or their activities.

These are the most common species found on poultry farms. Not only are they a nuisance, but they can also carry disease-causing organisms.

More than 100 pathogens associated with the housefly can cause diseases in humans and animals, including typhoid fever, cholera, bacillary dysentery, tuberculosis, ocular anthrax, and childhood diarrhea, as well as parasitic worms.

Pathogens are picked up by flies from garbage, sewage, and other sources of filth; they carry them on their mouthparts and other body parts; and then, through their vomit, feces, and contaminated external body parts, they transfer them to human and animal food.

The male housefly's eyes are almost touching (holoptic), while the female's are set further apart (dichoptic).

Their mouthparts are of the suction-and-crushing type, due to their fleshy structure and the way they liquefy food before swallowing it.

Adults are grayish color, 6 to 9 mm in length, with four black stripes on the dorsum of the thorax.

In the abdomen are two spots of yellow-cream on the sides.

Life cycle and description fly home:

Housefly view below on a glass plate, photo Sarefo.

Male housefly on a cable of light, photo Kamranki.

Male housefly, photo from James Lindsey’s *Ecology of Commanster*

In photos You can see that the male's eyes are almost touching (holoptic), while the female's eyes appear farther apart (dichoptic).

The housefly undergoes a complete metamorphosis, consisting of the egg, larva (or maggot), pupa, and adult stages.

Houseflies, whether in the larval or pupal stage under piles of manure or in other sheltered places, thrive in the warm summer conditions, which are generally optimal for their development.

And can complete their life cycle in just seven to ten days, and a maximum of 10 to 12 generations may have in a summer.

Reproduction:

The abdomen is distended when the fly is full of food. At the posterior end, the female presents an ovipositor segmented that can be extended and retracted to facilitate the laying of the eggs.

The ovipositor has sensory structures that help the female to select sites of oviposition appropriate.

The male has pieces genitals after that are usually hidden, while the fly is not matching.

During mating, the complex lobes of the pieces' genitalia of the male are closed around the ovipositor female to inject the sperm inside the female. The sperm are directed to a storage area (spermatheca) in the reproductive system of the female, and are available there for the fertilization of the egg during their journey down the oviduct. Thus, a female can lay several batches of eggs fertilized, only with an intercourse has been successfully completed.

Female houseflies are monogamous, that is to say, normally mate only once.

The female produces a volatile sex pheromone called muscalure, which attracts males.

In the process of mating, the male catches it at times to the female in the air, but the copulation itself takes place once you have settled on a surface, rather than in flight.

The female mates and begins laying eggs 3–4 days later (pre-oviposition period).

The threshold for pre-oviposition development is around 14 °C (57 °F).

Housefly mating, photo by Joaquim Alves Gaspar.

Eggs fly home:

Housefly eggs, photo by Perennou Nuridsan.

The eggs are deposited individually, but accumulate in small masses.

Each female fly can lay up to 500 eggs in several batches of about 75 to 150 eggs, each one for a period of three to four days, often putting them in places normally dark in the animal waste or rubbish.

The number of eggs produced is a function of the size of the female, which is mainly the result of the nutrition of the larvae.

The egg is white, elliptical, approximately 1 mm long and 0.26 mm width, with both ends aromados, and the anterior part slightly fusiform, the chorion appears smooth, but a closer examination reveals a pattern of marks in hex.

On the dorsal side, there are two ridges longitudinal curved. The cell division in the egg starts shortly after oviposition (approximately 8 minutes).

The hatching of the larva occurs through a cleft in the dorsal side of the egg. Increases in the populations are normally logged from December to march.

Larva of the housefly:

Larvae of housefly, photo Kamranki.

A group of housefly larvae.

The larva matures measures 3 to 9 mm long, typically creamy, whitish in color, cylindrical, but tapering toward the head.

The head contains a pair of hooks, dark. The spiracles later are slightly elevated, and the openings are espiraculares slots winding that are completely surrounded by a black border oval. The larvae have no legs emerge from the eggs in a warm climate within eight to 20 hours, and they feed off immediately and develop in the field, where they laid the eggs.

The larvae are fully developed, they look fat, cream and 8 to 12 mm long. The larvae pass through three stages. When the larvae are full-grown, will creep up to 15 meters, in a cool, dry place, close to propagating material of a variety, and transform to the pupal stage. High moisture of the manure favors the survival of the larvae of the housefly.

The hatching of the larva It occurs through a fissure on the dorsal side of the egg. This fissure extends posteriorly as the larva emerges, head first. After the larva emerges, the chorion collapses.

Pupae of the housefly:

Prepupal and pupal stages, by age of the housefly.

In the process of puparium takes place a general shrinkage of the larva within its own coating, becoming a pupario cylindrical approximately 6.3 mm long.

The chrysalis is formed from the larva's final exoskeleton, which ranges in color from yellow, red, and brown and gradually darkens until it turns a deep, dark brown.

Since the corona pupal forms at the expense of the skin of the larva, the pupa is inside is said to be of type restricted (contracted or compacted).

The pseudocephalic region is completely retracted, so that the anterior spiracular processes are very close to the anterior end of the pupa.
The pseudopodia locomotor persist on the ventral surface, although the puparium is not mobile.

A pair of dark pupal spiracles appears on the connective membrane between the apparent fifth and sixth segments, on the dorsal side; these constitute the pupa's only air intake.

To exit wrap pupal, it does so through the use of a sack of expansion and contraction, called the ptilinum, in the front part of his head, that it uses like a jackhammer.

Parts of the pupae of the housefly

(A) Pupal case showing remnants of the anterior and posterior spiracles from the larval stage.
(B) The Pupa develops inside the puparium.
C) Puparium after which the adult fly has emerged through the crack above.

Videos housefly:

Housefly eating, macro video. By Laura García, lauriphoto.es

A fly domestic attentive in a sheet.

Metamorphosis of a larva to turn into a fly.

Literature review:

MERCK & CO. (1995). Manual Merck de Veterinaria. Rahway, N. J., EE. UU.

BUXADÉ, P. (1987). The laying hen. Ed. Mundiprensa. Madrid.

DORN, P. (1987). Manual of avian pathology. Ed. Acribia. Zaragoza.

HOFSTAD, M. S. (1984). Diseases of Poultry. Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa.

MAURER, VERONIKA. Contrôle des mouches des étables. Service romand de vulgarisation agricole (Agridea, Lausanne), CFPPA Montmorot et FiBL (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, Switzerland).

LOFTIN, KELLEY et al. Fly control for organic dairies. Cooperative Extension Service. Division of agriculture. University of Arkansas.

D’ASSIS FONSECA, E.C.M. (1968). Diptera: Muscidae. Royal Entomological Society of London Handbook

ROZKOSNY, R., GREGOR, F. & PONT, A.C. (1997). The European Fanniidae (Diptera). Brno: Institute of Landscape Ecology. Séguy, E. (1923)

DIPTÉRES: Anthomyides. París: Éditions Faune de France

ZARZUELO, E. (1982). Vade mecum of the pathology, infectious poultry. Ed. Aedos, Barcelona.

CASTELLÓ, F. and CASTELLÓ, J. A. (1960). The New Art of Raising Chickens. Aedos, Barcelona.

OROZCO, F. (1989). Breeds of chickens Spanish. Ed. Mundiprensa. Madrid.

LACADENA, J. R. (1998). Genetics. Ed. AGESA

PUERTAS, M.J. (1992). Genetics: Fundamentals and Perspectives. McGraw-Hill Interamericana.

SANCHEZ-MONGE, E. (1969), Genetics. Espasa-Calpe S.A.

OROZCO, F. and ROBLA, F. (1986). Genetic aspects of the León rooster. 24th Symposium of the WPSA (Spanish Section): 199–212.

HILL, J. L. (1973). Genetics, general and applied. Ed. UTEHA.

CASTELLÓ, J. A., LLEONART, R., FIELD, J. L., OROZCO, F. (1989). Biology of the chicken. Real Escuela de Avicultura.

LLEONART, F., ROCA, E., CALLÍS, M., GURRI, A., PONTES, M. (1991). Poultry Hygiene and Pathology. Royal School of Poultry Science.

STURKIE, P.D. (1968). Avian Physiology. Acribia Publishers. Zaragoza.

LOHMANN ANIMAL HEALTH (2012)

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