Your Horses Have Fly Phobia?

I know how you feel. Know what it's like. I've been there.

You get to the barn, excited for a fun day of riding, or grooming, or even just sitting out in the pasture reading under the shade of a tree while your horse munches happily on grass at your side. Nothing can go wrong, you think.

You arrive, and your horse seems thrilled to see you as well, charging to the gate and begging you to let her through, and then dragging you back to the cool dark barn. This is great! you say. She's excited to be ridden!

You discover in a very small amount of time that no, this stomping, swishing monster your filly has become is not excited to ride. She's just trying to get away from the bugs. And this is when your fun, relaxing day turns into something out of a sci-fi adventure, as you spray yourself and your horse every couple of minutes, trying to stop the agony of the buzzing, and slap at her stomach to free her of the giant fanged horsefly making her bunnyhop four feet in the air.

I know, I know! I have an incredibly thin skinned Thoroughbred who will dance if even one gnat touches her shoulder. I'm with you all the way. These bugs need to go down.

So what do you do? Well, since I've tried just about every fly remedy out there, I've compiled a nice list of "cures" to get rid of those winged beasts.

First of all, we have sprays. Fly sprays have been around as long as flies, and most brands have even come out with new sprays that are sweat and water-resistant. I will let you in on a secret though- sprays that are supposed to last two weeks have rarely ever lasted two days for me. Endure and Pyranha seem to work the best, though, if you don't have any problems with spraying your horse with chemicals that cause cancer in the human body. Since I did have a few concerns about that fact- and also since I use fly spray myself when I'm at the barn and didn't feel like dying of cancer just to keep the bugs away- I decided to look for a different product. It also helped my decision to continue looking when my filly broke out in hives every time I sprayed her- it would seem her thin Thoroughbred skin isn't happy with chemicals.

All natural and green sprays come to mind next, since they're chemical free! Good for you, good for your horse, good for the environment, and they won't cause cancer if they get on you. Not to mention, they can smell fantastic- like marigold and peppermint and coconut. Unfortunately, it happens that flies- at least the flies at all the barns I've been at- aren't really deterred by a horse who smells like flowers. Again, Pyranha's all natural fly spray seemed to work the best for me, but it still didn't last longer than an hour- not good if you're planning on an all day trail ride, unless you want to get down and reapply every fifty-five minutes.

So then we came to sheets. My baby girl is currently decked out in nose to toe fly garb. She is wearing the lates styles of fly sheet with bellyband and tail flap, with an attached neck cover, extra long fly mask that covers everything from the tip of her ear to the bottom of her nose, and fly boots. Sheets seem to work great out in the pasture- they keep all but the most determined bugs off. In purchasing a fly sheet though, you have to be careful. Some I've bought are too heavy and unyielding, and the child comes in lathered in sweat. But don't go too far the other direction- I once bought a nice light, soft fly sheet for her and she had it ripped along the side in one day, after rubbing up against a tree. So light is good, but keep an eye out for ripstop material- it works the best and keeps the longest. I would recommend Saxon, since I bought a very light sheet from them that held up beautifully for three years, but then when that one gave out, I got another and it was ruined in less than a week. Might have been the horses, or it might have been the sheet. But there are good, inexpensive fly sheets out there that hold up fo a while. Read reviews before you buy anything for your horses, and make sure to think about if your horse is hard on their sheets.

Since you can't really use a fly sheet while riding (or, at least, I never have because it would be too easy to get tangled around legs, which would be more hindering than it would helpful) you can try ShooTAG for horses. The cool things about these are that they're supposed to work with the horse's energy field to create a sort of "barrier" around the horse that will confuse bugs and keep them from landing. The tags are supposed to use frequencies that deter the bugs and work for up to four months. I've had curious results with these- they will work on some horses, but not on others. I don't know what the difference between horses is, but I can clip a tag on one horse and then sit and watch as bugs swarm him but never touch him, and then I can clip one on a different horse and have no results at all. Either way, they don't usually last four months. The best I've had is a month and a half. But if you have a horse these will work on, they're fantastic- you can ride, you can turn your horse out to pasture, you can bathe, you can do just about anything without ever spraying or putting a sheet on, and the bugs will never touch your horse.

If ShooTAGs don't work for you, you can try fly bands- Defy The Fly has seemed to be the best. They are also allnatural with no chemicals, and repel flies, mosquitoes, and gnats. As with everything so far, they don't last as long as the packaging proclaims. I also have a hard time getting the leg bands to stay on my horses' legs either because she'll reach down and rip them off (but never has problems with wraps or bandages) or because running through deep grass ever day can cause the sticking power to give out. The neck band/collar also works alright, but neither really keep flies from biting farther along the horse (shoulder, back, rump). Also, try not to ride through water with these on- it washes the fly-ridding power right out of them.

A completely different way to go is Fly Predators, or feed through fly control. Fly Predators work great... but only get rid of flies. Horseflies stick around, as do mosquitoes, gnats, ticks, etc. They are great if you have a huge fly population you're trying to get rid of, but not so much if your herd is tormented by, say mosquitoes. Not to mention, flies can still hang around- the Predators get rid of fly larvae, not actual flies. You will have no second generation of flies, but your first generation will still need to be swatted. Feed through fly control is fantastic as well, but you have to be aware of what you're feeding. Garlic used to be a go-to fly control, because feeding your horse garlic makes them sweat garlic scent... which flies really do not like. Garlic is also supposed to be pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory, anti-biotic and reduce swelling. But even though garlic can bring relief from the flies, studies are also showing that garlic can do more harm than good- garlic actually has a toxin in it called N-propyl disulfide that will make your horse anemic. And be aware of diatomaceous earth too- it might be good at shredding apart worms inside your horse, but think about what it's doing to the rest of your horse's stomach. Some people can use DE and have absolutely no issues with it at all, but others refuse to feed it because they're worried about what the sharp edges will do to their horse.

So what does that leave? Not everything works all the time for every horse. Personally, I give my horse apple cider vinegar, spray her with Avon Skin So Soft once a day, keep fly sheets on her whenever a saddle is not, use Equi-Spot on her legs, ride with fly spray always nearby (either sitting in easy reach on the mounting block or in a tiny refillable perfume bottle in a pocket in my fannypack on a trail ride), and use a QuietRide fly mask from Cashel while I ride. Not all of these products always work, and never have they worked as long as they're supposed to on paper, but while my filly isn't totally fly-free, she is a lot happier than most of the other horses in the pasture who are constantly swishing, biting, pawing, and kicking at flies.