Dakin Dairy has been supplying milk and cheese for the state of Florida since 1973, where its products have made their way into more than 700,000 kitchens. Throughout the years, the local family dairy farm has grown from 300 to 2,500 cows. Cameron Dakin, a third-generation dairy farmer oversees the operation today, and he is always looking for new ways to sustain the family farm.

It was always a top priority for Dakin to ensure the comfort and health of his dairy cows. However, he noticed a few problems, such as an irritatingly large fly population on the dairy that was disturbing his dairy cow health. He observed many cases of pink eye in dairy cows on his operation as the fly population continually increased throughout the spring. Cameron knew he needed to do something to stop flies on the cows.

“When we were having these severe fly problems, as bad as it was on the cows, they were eating us up as well,” said Dakin. “So, it didn’t take long to figure out we have to do something about all these biting flies.”

At first, Dakin decided to vaccinate his cows, but, it didn’t work. He also tried fly tags and various fly sprays to help control the fly problem. These options were not only unsuccessful, but they were also labor intensive, according to Dakin.

Met with little previous success, Dakin decided to test out ClariFly^® Larvicide. When he began using ClariFly^® Larvicide, he finally noticed a decline in the number of flies on cows as well as instances of pink eye and udder infections. Flies are a proven vector for disease and bacteria, including Staph. aureus, the primary cause of mastitis.

“What I’ve found the best about ClariFly^® Larvicide is the easiness,” said Dakin. “You get it, put it in your feed, and it’s over with. By using ClariFly^® in our feed, it saves us labor and time that we could be doing something else with.”

With ClariFly^® Larvicide, Dakin no longer had to worry about bringing cattle to the pens and spraying them, which was time consuming and stressful on the cattle, especially during the hot Florida summers.

Central Life Sciences also sent a representative to help teach Dakin how to use ClariFly^® Larvicide, an effort Dakin credits with helping maximize fly control results on his 1,200-acre dairy farm.

Since using ClariFly^® Larvicide, Dakin said that his family dairy farm has had little to no fly issues, assisting with the 4.6 million gallons of milk produced annually at Dakin Dairy.

“I’d drive through a barn with heifers on both sides and just not see any flies,” said Cameron. “At one point I went and got one of my friends that has a farm and I said you’ve got to see this, you aren’t going to believe this.”

Want to learn more? Watch the “Dakin Dairy Achieves Best Fly Control with ClariFly Larvicide” video on CentralFlyControl.com.