I use a flame weeder followed by releasing some parasitic wasps. I find all the breeding areas (any where there is wet manure) and stir the soil. I cook the maggots with the flame weeder as I stir. I then turn out the wasps, try buglogical.com for more info on them, to clean up whatever is left. I have less flies for less money than when I had a company come spray!
If you don't have a sadistic streak laced with pyromania like me, you can just turn out the wasps, but use more than is recommended.

Do you have chickens? They love maggots. Rotate them with the goats.

I feel for you, we had our Fly Invasion a couple of months ago. Tons of flies, we did the fly strip thing and swatted as best we could. Now they are gone as quickly as they appeared. Weird. Hang in there!

Velvet ~:>

Ditto on the flies--this year has been AWFUL. This morning I counted 60 flies between window and screen in one window!!
I have fly traps but have caught very few--mostly swat them. I am interested in the flame weeder idea--but what are the chances that will start a fire, esp with straw in the chicken pen? It sounds doable in the pig pen where there is mostly just dirt/mud.
And then there are the fruit flies in the house--swarms hanging around 3 days after I've put away a couple of tomatoes.
I've decided that the purpose of flies, at least in Wisconsin, is to help us look forward to the freezing temperatures just around the corner!

If the flies in the house are large and slow, they may be cluster flies - they look for somewhere to hibernate starting about now. They are parasitic on earthworms, and annoying but harmless.

If they move fast, then they are other, pestiferous flies. Flypaper and swatters will work in the house. A friend in FL had luck at her barn using a solution of Rid-X (sold in grocery or hardware stores as a treatment/additive for septic systems). The bacteria, mixed at a ratio of about half to one cup per watering can (depending on the size of the can) and sprinkled over the fly-breeding areas somehow eliminated the new generations. It needs to be repeated - at monthly intervals, as I recall - but is totally harmless to everything else. It won't do anything for the existing flies. My friend moved further north in FL, her neighbor raises cattle, so she switched to the fly predators (tiny parasitic wasps), since they will cover more ground, and do something for the fly population at a greater distance - she was not willing to try to sprinkle his pastures!

For fruit flies, a good trap is to take a small plastic tub - yogurt, margarine, cottage cheese, etc. - heat a small diameter nail and burn 2-3 holes in the lid. Put a small piece of fruit inside, put the lid on, and leave the closed tub on the counter where the fruit flies hang out. The flies crawl in, and don't seem to be able to crawl out. Toss the whole thing when you see no more flies around it, and/or if they have found more fruit in the meantime, make another one when this seems ineffective.

Thank you all for the great advice! I am definately going to try the parasitic wasps. I do have chickens, but my husband would have a heart attack if I put "his girls" in with the goats, lol! They do move fast, so they are pestiferous flies. I will keep up the swatting. Thanks, again!

I got a cow this spring and found out what flys where! Feed store told me about a feed through fly control. I put a little in the food everyday and it kills the larva in the poop before it can grow. Took about a month, but flys are under control. Hardly any, back to normal with only a fly once in a while. Check to see if they have it for goats. Winter will reduce them, but they are only sleeping to come back and get you in the spring! I also sprayed down the barn and areas around feed bins with fly spray for the first few months. If you have the parasitic flys, you can't spray because that will kill them too. Good luck.