Garlic as a fly repellent

[willhegofirst]

I have never believed in feeding garlic as a fly repellent, but there are three horses at the private yard my lads on, the two belonging to the owners, both feed garlic and my lad, not fed garlic. The other two are bays, mine is a flea bitten grey, the other two are fairly fly free, my lad is covered particularly his head, so does garlic work against flies? Or do they just like my lad!

 

[Mule]

Used to use it for a horse that got allergic reaction to flies. It worked. They never bit her again. I gave two cloves, cut up in small pieces in a bucket feed each day in the summer months.

Some people worry about feeding it as a study was done showing it to be harmful for the horse's health when fed in very large quantities. (Far larger than one would ever feed it) The study is somewhere online. I've read it.

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

I used to fee - but was told it can have behavioural problems, of all the livery horses fed garlic they don't sweat it out or have any less flies on them than the others. It could just be your horse sweats more or his diet cause a sent which flies attract too.

I have a grey and fined fly rug and power phaser protects her enough.

 

[windand rain]

Garlic given in large enough doses to deter flies is very dangerous to the horses health, kills gut bacteria and causes aememia. I think your horse is just unlucky in being attractive to flies

 

[JillA]

Garlic given in large enough doses to deter flies is very dangerous to the horses health, kills gut bacteria and causes anaemia. I think your horse is just unlucky in being attractive to flies

If you MUST feed it feed it along with a probiotic to help the gut flora. I left some freely available for my lot once, so they could self medicate. None of them did

 

[Shay]

There have been studies both ways. It is likely that the answer is more nuanced. Each individual horse has a unique biochemistry - and each area has a different composition of flies responding to different adversive stimuli. The studies which show garlic causes harm did rely on a feeding rate far in excess of what would normally occur so to be honest I don;t really take much stock of that. Why not try feeding garlic for a short period and see if it makes a difference to your particular horse and in your particular circumstances.

From my own experience with quite a number of horses over a fair few years garlic is effective as a fly repellent in about half. Don;t feed too much and don't feed longer than you need to. Personally I use human grade dried garlic from a wholesaler as it is cheaper (and probably better quality) than the stuff marketed for horses. You can use fresh garlic but the potency can vary from bulb to bulb.

 

[ester]

I wouldn't ever feed a horse garlic, I'd always opt for alternative ways of fly protection.

 

[poiuytrewq]

I never usually feed garlic due to the other health implications as above.
However this summer the flies have been that bad and when I was younger I swore by garlic so decided to give it a try short term
I can honestly say I’ve not noticed any difference whatsoever

 

[SEL]

I have been tempted to put Militaire back on garlic because his feather mites were never that bad when he was on it. He did used to sweat it out though and stunk. Same with turmeric.

 

[HuT]

My horse didnt tolerate garlic give them digestive issues. I am currently using the new fly repellent bands on my horse and i have to say i think they are actually working... i went for the cheaper version (Equine Bug Bands instead of the FLy Off ones) and my horse doesnt have flys around the head at all and when one does come close to the body they seem to fly around and then fly off before ever landing