Please - something to stop the midges under horses belly

Spyda

Spyda

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Can someone tell me what's best to apply between my filly's hind legs and tummy to stop the midges biting and making her bleed. It's an annual problem and I find none of the sprays or gel fly repellents work long enough. I bought Coopers last year after recommendation, but it didn't work that well at keeping the midges off the tender belly and inner hind leg areas. I took her for a 30min walk in hand this afternoon and by the time I got her back to her stable her tummy, infront of her teats, was plastered in midges. She was really irritated and kicking wildly. I brushed them off, by they've left bleeding spots behind. Last year her whole belly swelled and I'm keen to avoid that happening again this year. H E L P!!! :(
 
My Section D has sensitive skin and use to get eaten alive by biting bugs. I use a light coating of vaseline on his sheath and bellybutton. It creates a great defense barrier and lasts for up to 24 hours.
 
Brilliant! Thanks. Worth a try. I've got a big tub of petroleum jelly. I'll try it tomorrow before I turn her out. Fingers crossed it works.

I find the sprays just don't last long enough. If you apply them in the morning they've worn off by lunchtime :(
 
I use udder cream on my mares udder and belly. She suffers from sweet itch and gets quite sore round her udder normally. The udder cream doesn't repel the midges, but ifyou slap it on quite thickly, it does prevent the midges from being able to get to the skin. I get a large tub from my local agricultural store, and that will normally last me all summer.
 
A fly rug with a belly/udder/sheath cover??? Nettex itch stop salve is great for repelling midges, use it on my sweet itch horse, keeps the little buggers at bay, i apply i 3 times a week it soothes the itching too, wash the area before putting more on and if she's in i'll put some aloe vera gel on to soothe too xxxx
 
We use yellow fly cream put loads on under the stomach on what I call the zip(the line under thier stomach) its the only thing we have found that stop those little black things that suck the blood, we also put it on the outer of his sheath.
 
Avon Skin So Soft, keeps the worst of the scottish west coast midges at bay!! It's a spray which is very oily and is a very effective barrier even on thin skinned TBs.
 
Mimi2610 said:
Avon Skin So Soft, keeps the worst of the scottish west coast midges at bay!! It's a spray which is very oily and is a very effective barrier even on thin skinned TBs.
Click to expand...

Brilliant stuff! and of course you can use it on yourself in the nice weather - not only will the bugs stay away, you will be lovely and moisturised and smell gorgeous! ;)
 
Not sure if applies to horses or not, but when i am kayaking there are a million midges by the water (sometimes on it) i cover myself in a citronella based spray. They don;t like it.
Maybe you could use the vaseline as noted above and maybe a spray of citronella to ward them off!
 
Avon skin so soft is the only thing that doesn't gunk up their tail!! It also works brilliantly. Without it my old girl can ge so sore she actually goes lame. Nasty blood sucking beasties!!
 
Mimi2610 said:
Avon Skin So Soft, keeps the worst of the scottish west coast midges at bay!! It's a spray which is very oily and is a very effective barrier even on thin skinned TBs.
Click to expand...

Brilliant stuff, if its good enough for the army on jungle training, its good enough for my lot.Great for sweetitch too.
Also use sudocrem on the sensitive bits like my mare's udder and geldings pink sheath. He gets badly bitten and the sudocrem soothes the bites and repels midges. Also the best sunblock I've found.
 
As a human that midges love to eat, I have to cover myself in Jungle Formula. It's got DEET in it. I know people don;t like it as it is a chemical but boy does it work? You can get a few DEET horse sprays now, I used to spray it on my old horse who had sweet itch. I even brought a bottle of children's DEET roll-on back from Australia for my horse.

ALso anything with citronella does work very well. You can buy citronella oil off ebay which you can make into a spray. And Avon Skin so soft is good too. The spray in a blue bottle.
 
power phaser fly spray is really good and lasts for ages as it honks !! maybe you could feed her garlic so she smells or rather tastes not very nice? or give naf a ring as they have lots of things that you can put in their feed or if your not feeding her anything maybe a garlic lick??? hanging garlic in the stable can help and i think any of the creams will help although sounds a bit messy for me and she may become irritable to touch her belly in later life or it may have the opposite effect and she will be great with it . make sure her teats are clean and not full of crap as i know its different with geldings but this might be what the midges like i know my boy has a dirty doodaa at the mo and has a few midges but unless he lets me catch him to clean it he will just have to deal with it silly horse!!!!
 
Not known in the UK but very well know in France where I'm from, I use something called Emouchine forte. I asked my mum to send me a bottle last year as what I found here didn't work!(it will last you several years!)
It is veeeery smelly and of a black colour but it really does work and you can also dilute it if you find it too smelly!
You apply it with a brush or if you dilute it you can put it in a spray bottle and spray it!
It can stay on up to 1 week for a horse living outside.
I've always used it in France in Summer as we get so many horse flies!
I recommended it to some of my friends here but they couldn't bear the smell...
Here is a link:
http://www.technihorse.com/ravene-emouchine-forte.html
(it is this one you need, all other products contain some emouchine but not very strong and they apparently don't do a lot against flies!)

I am not sure if they would post to the UK but if you are interested please PM me and I'll have a look for you :-)

Just found this website, they post to the UK but it's £10 Postage:
http://www.zubial.fr/emouchine-forte-ravene-bidon-500-ml-id-2499-1.html
 
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The Nettex one. My chap has his sheath and end of willy bitten so much that it makes little spots of blood all over it. I put the Nettex salve on daily and it sooths and calms and stops them.
 
sjp1 said:
The Nettex one. My chap has his sheath and end of willy bitten so much that it makes little spots of blood all over it. I put the Nettex salve on daily and it sooths and calms and stops them.
Click to expand...

Is it this one, you mean? Or is it another one?http://www.millbryhill.co.uk/equestrian-530/horse-health-grooming-585/horse-shampoo-conditioners-602/complete-shampoo-conditioner-5468.htm Anyone use this one? Do you REALLY only need to apply it once or twice a week for it to work effectively? Be great if it actually did!
 
Equimins Biting Midge Cream! We have this problem every year, midges in between back legs and front legs which just stick there and won't bugger off, making the horses bleed (perhaps because we are near water). I've tried a lot of things but the midge cream is without doubt the best of the bunch. It's nice and thick so stays put and it's really very effective whilst not being expensive. Easy to apply, stays in place and does the tricky perfectly. :) It also doesn't smell horrible and seems to be quite gentle on their skin.

I tried the Avon Skin So Soft but it made me mare's hair look strange! I also prefer to use a cream for the midges as it's thicker and you can see where you are putting it.
 
Great, thanks everyone. :)

Seems there are a few options available. Luckily it's only a smallish area around her teats and bum cheeks that get attacked badly, so I haven't got to plaster loads on all over. She wears a fly rug but of course the midges just fly in underneath, attach themselves to the thin areas of skin and drive her [and me] nuts.
 
The mare i used to own, suffered with this too and the only thing i found that worked is vaseline, cheap and cheerful too, which is always a bonus in this current climate
Kate x
 
i imported an andalucian and BOY did she turn out to have worst sweetitch vet had seen (made her unable to move - hair all fell out, swollen under belly, teats, front legs, looked like huge blisters, lost all her mane and tail and all hair on face). when turned out (24/7) she wore full flyrug and full fly mask but on hour or so when rugs off she was attacked so badly was total nightmare.

vet used FLYPOR which is actually for use on cattle and told me to reapply once week along neck and back to bum. kinda worked actually but seriously full of chemicals and still suffered so tried many other things!!. avoid putting skin so soft on raw/sore skin as she blew up like a balloon, red, hot and swollen, and had to be sedated to wash it off (nightmare) next was ''ruggle-it' found over the internet, worked 65% of time but daily reapplying was messy and it STINKS!!!! yellow fly cream was also messy and stained her bright yellow, and was ok but not great, vaseline sort of worked but in heat melted everywhere and was useless, sudocream was very good, but ended up using a pot everyother day. was a week away from calling vet to get the monthly steriod injection when rang the sweetitch helpline to buy a bowen rug (think thats what they called) .. she advised me to double dose worm her and see what happed....... well, all i can say is it worked. sweetitch subsided to managable level and horse sooo much happier could leave rug off her and just use baby oil gel (kinder than skin so soft but same effect)
 
I use sudocrem, barrier, soothing & antiseptic. Can be messy if horse sweats a lot in work, get go running down hind legs, so I always sponge bits/hind legs off then reapply it after work.
 
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