Bot flies - how do you cope?

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apkelly01

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Bandit and his companion are being hounded by bot flies. Is there anything I can do or put on them to help them?

How do people here cope with them? Thanks in advance
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Since my lad has been on pure dried garlic flakes(bought from our local chinese supermarket)they dont touch him
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We only had them the first year we had our shetlands, havent seen them since, but basically ages spend brushing though the coat with bot fly knife to remove the eggs, and lots of normal fly sprays
 
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We only had them the first year we had our shetlands, havent seen them since, but basically ages spend brushing though the coat with bot fly knife to remove the eggs, and lots of normal fly sprays

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Did the fly spray work and what brand please? Do yo think fly rugs would help?
 
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Since my lad has been on pure dried garlic flakes(bought from our local chinese supermarket)they dont touch him
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Do you think introducing garlic now would help or is it too late?
 
Try "Barrier Parasite Repel". I also use a bot knife to scrape the eggs off their legs. In late Autumn/early Winter (after the first frost) you can use a moxidectin or ivermectin-based wormer just incase they licked and swallowed some of the eggs
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Not sure as it is pure soo should go straight into bloodstream,worth doing
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,dosnt hurt to feed it all yr round,i get a 1kg bag(maybe 2kg,have to check),for £4.90 and it lasts forever,tis the stuff we have but dried,have never had that result with horse garlic
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,all you can do at the mo is spray and scrape am afraid
 
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Do yo think fly rugs would help?

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Bots tend to lay most of their eggs on horses' legs so a fly rug wouldn't be that useful
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Sorry cant remember, they were too young to be worked, so it wasnt a huge problem, but it was probably NAFF but i find that a bit useless.
Some sort of Avon skin care stuff is meant to be amazing for all sorts of flies on horses
 
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Sorry cant remember, they were too young to be worked, so it wasnt a huge problem, but it was probably NAFF but i find that a bit useless.
Some sort of Avon skin care stuff is meant to be amazing for all sorts of flies on horses

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Avon skin so soft i believe,have no idea how you apply...or if you have to add anything???Have no reps in this area otherwise would have had some
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my friend says it not the pink skin so soft its the other one. she wipes the bath oil on her lots legs and swears by it. smells nice too!
luckily i havent seen any yet this year!!
hadfos you can order avon online!
 
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my friend says it not the pink skin so soft its the other one. she wipes the bath oil on her lots legs and swears by it. smells nice too!
luckily i havent seen any yet this year!!
hadfos you can order avon online!

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Thankies....i never knew that
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,should have realised though eh,everything else is online,lol
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I think the avon name is Skin so Soft 'Woodland Fresh' -believe the army guys use it to repel midges instead of the army issue stuff.
 
I thought the SSS only worked on midges, not horseflies, bots etc.

Bot flies are godforsaken things, have you ever seen the barb they stick into the horse to anchor themselves on to lay their eggs? No wonder some horses utterly freak out when they are around.
 
Interesting about the oil. I was under the impression bot eggs are laid on the grass and stick to the horses legs rather than actually laid on the horse itself so it would make sense that an oil on the fur might make them less likely to stick! I wonder if something like showsheen would have a similar result? Possibly not as long lasting as baby oil!
 
Avon SSS doesn't work on bot flies on ours - sprayed them al over yesterday morning, went back and filloed up water containers, by the time Iwas back at the field they both had them flying round despite being soaked in SSS - legs well sprayed too
 
We get plagued with the horrible things at work - funnily enough I keep my horse only a few miles away in the next village across and have never had a problem with bot flies! The horses at work tend to get thoroughly irritated by them all over (I know eggs are usually laid on the legs but they tend to fly all over, and I've found the eggs in manes, on withers, etc before!) so most of them wear fly rugs which really seems to help. Other than that, as it is a full livery yard, the staff seem to get called upon frequently during the day to squish the buggers! We take the eggs off as regularly as possible too and they all get wormed properly.
I imagine a fly spray such as Phaser might do it? You'd need strong stuff to ward off the bot flies! Eugh...
 
If you use an old fly spray bottle you can put the avon stuff in that and spray it on, i think my RI mixes it with other sorts of fly sprays of something, shes been experimenting trying to find the best formula
 
There are some fly repellent recipes using SSS and essential oils in Stableyard, although I don't reccomend you use as much of the oils as it says to, they are quite strong and expensive and aromatherapists only use a few drops not 2 teaspoonsful!
Although I have to say, I'm not overly impressed with the effectivesness as we were besieged on Saturday, despite being sprayed all over, so I've just got some Deosect which I saw recommended on here and I'm hoping that will work better.
 
Iuse Avon Skin so soft dry oil spray and this has done the job. The horse in the next field is not sprayed with the dry oil spray and is covered whereas my mare and her mate have only had two eggs all summer. At £2.50 for 250mls its worth a try.
 
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