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SUMMER
FLY REPELLANTS
As
spring brings in the nasty flying insect, we have to start
thinking about how to keep them off of us as well as our
horses. I believe
the only sure fire way to do that is a big flyswatter,
but that is a bit of a nuisance.
I
am a bit of a naturalist, so I do not like the chemical
repellants, like the Spot on that keeps flies away for two
weeks, etc. I am sure they work, I just don’t want them on
my horse. There
are quite a few of these on the market and I know many people
that have told me they work fairly well, in the best of
conditions ( no rain, no rolling in dirt, clean horses, no
sweating etc).
I
have opted to go the natural way since nothing is going to
work 100% anyway, why use all those chemicals.
My
recipe for easy to mix, good smelling homemade spray is:
4
oz Skin So Soft
1 oz citronella oil
12 oz vinegar
12 oz water
Mix
all together and it lasts as long as any of the expensive ones
do and smells a ton better! It is also good for their coat.
There
is another commercial spray
that I have used. It
is called Larry’s Horse
Spray . It is all natural and has time released ingredients that
really seem to work.
It is a concentrate and makes about 5 quarts making the
approximate cost per quart of 3.99. Other
than my homemade spray, it is the most effective and cheapest
of all I have used.
You
can buy it on line just about anywhere, but one website is: http://www.netmarc.com/larrystack/
One
other website has some great tick/fly repellents.
It is www.bugrepel.com. It is a bit more expensive, but since it is an oil base, it
lasts quite a bit longer.
I really like the smell and the flies hate it!
Another
thing I have used that works well if you have a horse that
stomps flies from his legs….and who doesn’t!
They are the leg wraps that are sold in most tack
shops, but anything you can wrap around the legs ..SAFELY…
will work. These
you can buy are Velcro wraps and keep the flies from biting
the legs very effectively.
Good
luck and if you have questions about where to buy anything,
just let me know. Only
5 ½ months until we don’t shed the
fly masks!
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