Those pesky flies and bugs huh?
They are the reason we started this company and dove into the journey of natural grooming is fly repellent!
We had an issue with using so much fly spray that did not work for all the pesky parasites that would bother us during our rides. We get them all from black flies, mesquites, to the giant car sized horse flies. Nats show up in the evenings when I was riding and I hated eating them as we rode around and transition from walk to canter or trot, no matter what anyone says, not my favorite protein! We also had some issues with running out, between multiple applications and some irresponsibility of family members, we would have supply chain shortages on our farm. kids dumping it or breaking a bottle or over usage it would always be gone in a week. I finally got sick of paying so much for it to not work and be wasted. I finally started looking onto making some for us. It took me lots of recopies to find the one that worked the best for us. I found out a lot of people were interested in the items and wanted to know where they could get what I made and bam...
Now along with all the research I did to find out that there are a lot of other things we can be doing around our farm to help keep the flies down. keep reading to find out more:
We started putting a few gallons of vinegar in our horse's water tanks. We did a 1 to 10 ratio, 1 gallon of vinegar to 10 gallons of water in out tanks, in our hundred-gallon tank we only put 2 to 3 gallons as we fill it when it is half full. This will help deter flies from laying eggs in feces after it has passed through the horse, it will also make your horse less appetizing smelling to flies and will. The more scientific reasoning is that vinegar causes Thiamine in the horse to be excreted through the skin which discourages biting insects. There are also a ton of other health benefits, and I can cover them in a different post.
We have started using a garlic dust in the barn, paddocks, yard and other areas. This will discourage mosquitos and other insects from laying eggs and is toxic to them, they best part about this is after a rain it smells like garlic bread outside, just kidding...
We also have put up some nontoxic traps and have a bug zapper. We have eliminated as many standing water places as we can and change out water tanks as often as we can. We also have ducks and chickens that love to eat bugs and their larva. We have been able to keep our tick population down with them as well. We also have lots of bat houses and bird houses to encourage a safe space for the animals that help keep the populations down.
These are just some of the tips and tricks we use.... leave a comment with what you use to help with keeping the biting bugs to a minimum at your barn or farm.
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