Fly Spray for Horses

[pardenx3]

All fly sprays claim to last up to seven days or something like that, but I have yet to find one that really does. So far, the best I have found at repelling every kind of flying insect for a short time, is Ultrasheild. Its safe to use on dogs as well, so it gets multiple uses around here.

 

[ozarkmomma]

bug off garlic from springtime. We feed it to the dogs and horses for fleas, ticks and flies.

 

[twentynine]

Okay! Thanks for the replies.

I got a big purple bottle of Bug Off, got rid of the flies last night and still no flies on him today.

Now that was the good part.

THAT BIG JOKER WENT BONKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a good idea from previous experience that he was no going to respond good to being sprayed, he didn't. He went wide eyed, snorting and kicking out a little. I had him restrained in a very sturdy close stall, had he been in the open or in a large stall they sure would have been allot more going on.

What I did to handle it was to fall back on the Clinton Anderson training. The part that deals with ground training and desensitising. I gave him a small shot of spray, he reacted, once he became still again I'd give him another small squirt, over and over and over and over. Probably over a period of 10 - 15 minutes I gave him 30 small squirts. He eventually got to the point where he understood that the spray bottle was not going to kill him. Still wasn't happy but he was able to calm down.

This morning he still wasn't happy with me.

 

[silverbird]

Just a word to the wise here. After talking to my vet about various fly sprays and side effects. It is extremely important to follow the manufacturer's instructions. Overuse of any products can cause systemic poisoning as the skin will absorb the chemicals. Do not use more than recommended. She was telling me about different individuals who's horses had suffered organ failure from overuse. I guess the moral here is to use the minimum that is effective and use flysheets etc as much as possible. I've used Off before when I ran out of horse fly spray and it seemed to work fine.

 

[Akane]

Nothing will last a week. You'll be doing good if you get something to last a full day and only have to do one application a day.

Most of the time we use the local brand of cattle spray that comes in a big pump container and has to be diluted before direct application. However one great use of Bronco and the exception to using cattle spray is when we have a sensitive horse. We've had a couple who would completely break out if sprayed with anything but the water based citronella sprays.

What's far more effective than putting something on the horse is altering the environment. Cut down standing water, treat the water tanks, move manure farther from the building if you have stalls, drag a rake across the pastures to dry out the clumps of manure, we have even sprayed our pastures and the manure pile from the barn before, and you can buy fly predators if you don't have too many nearby people with horses. The fly predators don't travel as far as the flies so are mostly useful if your area is isolated from other sources that grow flies.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

We just went through a similar issue with our almost three year old. I do have some advice as far as training goes, but you do have to be very careful when trying any of this!

Do you have a lunge line? What we did with our horse, is we filled a spray bottle with water and hooked her up to a lunge line. When she first heard the spray bottle, she would run in circles...around and around and around. We continued to spray until she stopped and relaxed a bit, if even for a moment. When she did that we immediately stopped spraying the bottle followed by lots of praise. Then repeat. This took a few days. Then when she was calm with that, we started spraying at her. She now stands perfectly fine.

You could also use a round pen, but you don't want to do this anywhere that they can get caught in a corner and panic. They'll realize that the spray bottle isn't so bad after running around a million times! However, if your horse is freaking out over just the sound of the bottle, you may have some work to do before putting him on the lunge line as you don't want him to hurt you trying to get away. Our horse's reaction wasn't overly severe, but it was enough to prevent us from using fly spray on her. Get him comfortable with a lunge line and you could even just carry the bottle with you when you go out to feed. Get him used to the sound and the spray of water. Repitition is the key here, but remember that a scared horse is a horse that is not thinking! They'll run right through fences or over people trying to get away from something if they think it is threatening. So go slow and when training think of pressure-release. In this instance, the spray bottle is the pressure and the release/reward occurs when they relax. The ultimate reward here is the discontinuation of the spray bottle.

I hope this makes sense! Please let me know if I can clarify anything though.

(Just as an aside: A horse doesn't necessarily need to know how to lunge to train this way. Our horse didn't, but we used a lunge line so we could have a little distance from her. When she started getting better with the bottle, we moved to a lead rope.)