Sultan got hives - twice

[motorgypsy]

We have cattle next door and therefore we have those flies that cattle seem to bring with them. We have the fly bags out but it takes a week or so of warm weather for them to really start working and in the meantime poor Sultan got chewed by something that gave him hives all over. We put a fly sheet on and gave him benedryl and they want away but of course after a week or so he took his fly sheet off and of course he got hives again. He also takes his fly mask off all the time. Honestly - they can be so exasperating!!! The flies were so bad where we board two of our horses that we had to get another fly sheet and put those long nosed fly masks on them plus the neck fly sheet. Poor Brandly looks like she came from outer space but she's such a priness and the pea. Bonnie on the other hand doesn't seem to get flies much. None of our pale cream colored horses seem to but they do like SloughP's nose. Gotta put spray on it tomorrow and get him a long nosed fly mask. Hate flies!!!

[Heidi]

Q had a terrible time last year with bug bites. They were so bad that she rubbed herself raw along her belly-line. She also rubbed most of the hair off her face (catching her forelock above her eyes), lower neck, shoulders and chest.
I have heard this is a reaction to culicoides (sp?), also called no-see-ums. I liberally spray her daily with a strong permethrin solution. I never seem to have a problem with flies...I scatter the poops, and the neighbors have dogs they don't clean poops up after so you'd think I'd have terrible flies...but the flies and mosquitoes seem to be repelled by the spray.
We do have bats in the area and I want Kenny to build me a bat-house to encourage them to eat our bugs.
My problem seems to be the no-see-ums and her itchy reaction to them. She would get a few little bumps, not many, perhaps 2-5 in various places about the size of a flat-ish jellybean under the skin.

I was reading a Horse & Rider mag the other night and saw an two-page advert spread for Cheval products (black as night) and they had one for bug bites to keep the horses from getting bit. Anyone tried this?

My vet is coming tomorrow for yearlies (shots, coggins, check teeth) and I plan on asking her what I can do to help Q through this summer so she isn't as miserable as she was last year.
Heidi

[Linda Y]

They really don't like your light colored horses? They seem to LOVE Casi, the perlino. Those little tiny flies that look sort of like house flies. She will be literally covered in them, and there will only be a few on the dark horses. They bite her legs bloody, and fly spray only helps for a very short time.

[JennLM]

We have a Dairy down the road and the flies out here are aggressive. Yes, they can be aggressive, the regular flies. I had one land on the crust of my pizza as I was eating it. I shoed it with my hand and it looked, no, glared at me and would not budge. These flies here are something awful. They have not begun to really come out yet.

Has anyone used the fly salt blocks? The Peruvian Paso Breeder (who runs the feed store) uses them and say they work great.

They attack our dogs worse then the horses :(

And people, you go to clean stalls and (remember how hot it is here) need to go in full body armor.

We may not have fleas or ticks out here but we surely have mutant evil flies.

[CarolU]

Those are horn flies on the cows....don't the cow fly tags work on them? Has anyone tried weaving the tags into the mane of the horse and see how they work on horn flies.

Jenn, I'd probably contact the manufacturer of the salt blocks and get a list of ingredients. There are many cow supplements they tell you NOT to use with horses, they really are very different speices. I'd check first to make sure nothing would harm the horses before using any internal 'fixes'. Then let everyone know how they work.

I just got my Pyrana fly spray in for the summer. It is like TriTech 14 and the best I've found...lasts about 3-4 days here. I can't do fly masks and have to use spray (which I whipe on and don't spray).

[JennLM]

These salt block are made for horses but yes I do want to see a list of ingredients. They said out here it's about the only thing that works well. They are a bit on the expensive side but it's a salt and mineral block as well. We used fly traps, sprays everything last year and still the dogs had parts of their ears eaten no matter what I used. The horses had it bad as well and took off each others (and their own) fly masks. I wanted to superglue those things on argh!

[DSDECKERT]

I hate to sound like a sales pitch - but you all need to get some Fly Predators. I live in Bug Capital USA (Tampa, FL) and hardly have any flies since I started using these.

www.spalding-labs.com

I do spray every morning with homemade fly spray because we still have those pesky sand gnats.

I had a friend looking at the Cheval feed-thru - let me email and see if she tried it.

[Heidi]

I had a friend looking at the Cheval feed-thru - let me email and see if she tried it.
Oh, please, please, please! I would love to hear feedback...
Heidi

[JennLM]

I have the site pulled up to show my husband because we may order a passel of them. Thanks for the info.

[Dianne]

When I lived in Florida I used Avon skin so soft on my horses faces ..it worked great..for us too :D specially the no see ems

[sherry k t]

We started the Simplyfly feed through and really like how its working!! only have a few small flys on them compared to a bunch!! just feed an ounce a day per head. really glad we started it!! we started 4/3/06 and saw results within a few days.

[Heidi]

I don't really have a fly problem, it is mostly mosquitoes and no-see-ums.

Vet came out yesterday and listened to all I had to say and recommended Tri-Hist as a fed-daily anti-histimine to counteract her reaction to the bug saliva. She did caution it would test positive in a show drug test.

We also discussed which vaccinations were required and recommended for my area and amount of horse travel/contact in addition to worming schedules for this area. I appreciated the amount of time she spent educating me, especially since she was running 2 hours behind.

Vet was impressed when Q walked right up to us and put her nose in the halter and she stood fabulously for her blood draw for the Coggins and for her vaccinations. What a trooper! ...though she did wiggle her head around when Dr wanted to check her teeth...all good in there!
Heidi

[motorgypsy]

Horn flies - those are the ones - look like small house flies but are really evil. We wet a wash cloth with our 50ml 10% permethrin solution to 1 qt of water and wiped down everyone. The fly predators don't work when you have cows next door. Ours have been taking off their fly masks but we just put them back on again. Twice Sultan has taken off his fly sheet but we put it back on again too. The poor cows are just covered with those flies. Our fly traps are working overtime. We have to get more. They are filling up fast!