Where Do Flies Lay Eggs?

Flies are annoying to deal with and they become extra handful if they manage to lay eggs within your house. In this article, you’ll know where flies lay their eggs so you can start avoiding them.

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So, where do flies lay eggs? Flies often lay their eggs in almost any warm, moist material that will provide food for the larvae or maggots.

• 6 Common Places Where Flies Lay Eggs
  1. Garbage Bins
  2. Feces, Animal Wastes
  3. Plants, Bird Nests, Animal Nests
  4. Decaying Corpses, Carcasses, Dead Animals
  5. Liquid Substances, near sources of water
  6. Unattended Food, Spoiled Food, Rotten Food

There are also times when flies would lay eggs on other areas. They could lay eggs in areas with warmer temperatures or places that have light sources and places that have been infested by other insects.

Flies prioritize laying their eggs in places where maggots can feed on instantly, the moment the maggots or larvae will emerge from the eggs.

The thing with flies is that they eat almost anything, making them capable of laying eggs on every consumable material for them.

A fly’s diet could go from unattended and spoiled food to garbage, feces and decaying corpses of other animals.

This is why you must not trust the areas a fly would land on, especially places where they have a source of food.

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Whatever their source of food is, can be a source of food for their offspring (maggots).

Areas that are clean, well maintained and have no room for fly food opportunities will keep flies away and prevent them from laying eggs.

The average female fly can lay up to four or six batches of 75 to 100 eggs and it normally hatches after 12 to 24 hours. Fly eggs are usually colored gray and the size is around 4 to 7.5 millimeters long.

As soon as a fly egg hatches, the maggots can come out and most of them look like tiny, pale white worms. Depending on the species, maggots can also appear with different sizes but most of them are tiny.

Find out more about the flies, their eggs, their life cycle, what happens if you eat a fly’s egg and more.

What fly eggs turn into

You may now know where flies lay their eggs, but are you aware of what their eggs turn into and what it could do to you?

As explained above, a fly’s egg turns into small white worms called “maggots“.

Between flies or maggots, you would want none of them. They are both a pain to deal with and both carry health risks that you must be aware of.

Fly eggs are hardly visible to the naked human eye – making it difficult to spot a fly’s egg even if you know just where to find them.

Coming into contact with flies and their eggs is dangerous for your health and that is why you must avoid flies so you won’t worry about their eggs.

What is the life expectancy of flies

The life expectancy of the average flies is just about 28 days; some can reach around 30 days for some cases. Without food and water, a fly can last up to two to three days.

As for maggots, without food, they can also last up to two to three days but they will die without reaching even reaching the pupation stage.

Most of the time, once a maggot enters the pupation stage, they are expected to live out the rest of their adult fly’s life expectancy.

Life Cycle of Flies

There are only “three” stages from the life cycle of flies or maggots. The beginning of maggots mark the beginning of their transformation into adult flies.

1. Larvae stage
   • Staying as a larvae
   • Preparing for pupation
2. Pupation stage
   • Slow transformation
3. Adult fly stage
   • Repeat the cycle

How to get rid of fly eggs

If you successfully spot a fly egg, don’t just throw it away. Leaving it in the trash will just allow them to hatch, increasing the number of flies in your neighborhood.

You have a few options.

You can flush out the fly eggs. They may not drown in water, but they will have no source of food and water will keep them trapped until they run out of energy and cause their death.

In any case, you probably won’t be dealing with just the eggs, because they can be hard to spot. You will probably deal with maggots, so here’s how you can get rid of them:

1. Spray maggot repellents
   • The most effective way to get rid of maggots including flies and the eggs in the area where they hatched is spraying an insect repellent. However, you must clean up their remains from the moment they die.
   • There are a lot of fly or maggot insecticides that can be purchased from any local store so if you see one, you should immediately buy yourself an insect repellent to get rid of them. It works quickly and all it takes is a few spray and you’re done! 
   • You just have to make sure that you will also clean the area afterwards to make sure there are no other eggs and keep your garbage bins closed so that no other flies can come back around to lay their eggs on it once again which will cause more maggots and flies.
2. Boiling water
   • According to research, maggots don’t really drown but spilling boiling water on them can hurt them. So, if you want to get rid of them immediately without having to go to the store to buy repellents, you can try to use boiling water first.
     
     Just make sure that it is really boiling so it will be effective and clean out the area afterwards as it can potentially just make the maggots hide somewhere or go deeper into the area where you can’t see it. Secure the area and make sure it is clean.
3. Sprinkling salt
   • Some people claim that sprinkling a good amount of salt on maggots worked for them.
     
     However, there are different kinds of maggots out there which means it may or may not work but it’s definitely worth the try, isn’t it? We need to get rid of those maggots! You can try to drop a few and see the reaction.
     
     If it works on one of the maggots, then you can assume that it might work for the others as well. If it’s not enough, then you can try the boiling water too. You have many options and you should use them as much as you can.
4. Raise a pet
   • Another way you can get rid of those maggots is actually raising an animal that naturally preys on insects like flies and maggots. If you are a fan of amphibian or reptile pets, it’s your time to take advantage of that. Pets like frogs, chameleons, iguanas, lizards and geckos can clear those maggots for you.
     
     Some type of birds also eats maggots and spiders on the other hand also eat and catch those kinds of insects.
     
     One more exotic option for you is the Venus flytrap plant. Although it is a plant, some people like to refer to it as a “pet”. You can feed those maggots to your Venus flytrap plant and they can also catch some of the flies hanging around so the number of eggs turning into maggots will also be lessened.
5. Use force
   • Worst comes to worst, sometimes we must just use force because we don’t really have a repellent available all of the time or have the energy to boil water and see if the salt method works.
     
     You can try to burn the maggots off or crushing them with a solid object… but we want to avoid being so violent as much as possible… so just buy yourself a repellent!

What happens if you eat a fly’s egg

Eating a fly egg often leads to mild food poisoning cases that may result in vomiting, stomachache or diarrhea. However, they still carry a lot of health risks that could become dangerously alarming.

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Here’s a list of things that flies and maggots (fly eggs) can do to you:

1. Cause irritation (skin infections)
2. Allergic reactions
3. High fever attacks
4. Stomachache
5. Food poisoning – vomiting, nausea
6. Diarrhea
7. Difficulty in breathing
8. Swollen skin, swollen face
9. Uncontrolled weight loss
10. Random body pain

Related Questions

What do flies do when they land on you?

Flies use their legs to taste and check if you have any food when they land on you, and if they tasted something sweet around your body, they may vomit on you and use their sponge-like tongue to “clean up” whatever they spat on you.

Do flies throw up on our food?

Yes, most species of flies will throw up on food because it is their involuntary reaction to food. They have to cover the food with their vomit in order to eat by sucking it back up with their sponge-like tongues because they have no ability to chew.

“MOST” is emphasized to show that not all breeds of fly do this type of behavior because some flies can actually bite you and suck blood like mosquitoes.