Mosquito season!

[Girlwholovesherhorses]

Hi Team,
I’d love your suggestions and help with how to keep the mosquitos and flies away during the summer!

My bigger horses are on Buglyte, platinum premium skin and allergy supplements and ultra shield fly spray along with fly masks and sheets, but I still haven’t felt like that’s done a great job.

Any tips and tricks to help my minis or big horses too would be awesome!

 

[Edelweiss]

https://www.miniaturehorsetalk.com/threads/garlic-for-bug-protection.140104/We have just been discussing fly and bug protection here! Lots of great info in this thread.

 

[Taz]

I'm no help with bugs, you're doing more than most of mine get already . I should post this on your other thread but I'm too tired to look it up, how is it going with your boys? Are they settling in and getting along better? They look happy with each other in your pictures.

 

[Girlwholovesherhorses]

Thank you!

 

[Girlwholovesherhorses]

I'm no help with bugs, you're doing more than most of mine get already . I should post this on your other thread but I'm too tired to look it up, how is it going with your boys? Are they settling in and getting along better? They look happy with each other in your pictures.

Aww thank you for being such a support for us and friend. They're doing so much better! Kiwi has settled in and calmed wayy down to a normal and manageable level. I think that first day I was just nervous that the craziness was his personality and not situational haha Cooper is letting me catch him again and coming up to me, being friendly and confident again so very happy his regression was only a few days long. Hope you and your little ones are doing well!

 

[HersheyMint]

They look good in your pictures

 

[rgsiiiya]

Bug control can be dependent upon geo region! So adapt to your own special situation
I'm in Colorado (dry, low humidity)...And I regularly get comments from the neighbors, Ferrier, vets about how minimal our pests infestation is

Mosquitos/moths/any CO2 UV attracted pests:
I have the largest size DynaTrap hanging in the loafing shed that the horses / goats share
DynaTrap® 1 Acre XL Mosquito and Insect Trap - Black | Dynatrap.com
It will fill up 100% through one season. Easy to empty and clean.

Flies
We do two things
1. We allow free pastured chickens through the whole property. They attack fresh manure and keep the compost pit clean!
2. We use parasitic flies. These take a couple years to fully break the larva cycle, but do a FANTASIC job!
We use Spalding Labs (spalding-labs.com)

Topical/spray repellent
We do organic, so don't use any of the chemical repellents.
All previous organic sprays we tried were worthless :-(
Until last year
Spalding has released an organic, independently tested topical spray that works GREAT!
It smells good, and is people safe also
Bye Bye Insect Essential Oil Fly Spray - Fly Sprays - Spalding Labs (spalding-labs.com)
I've also used it for aphid infestation, also worked great.

Fly Traps
I've tried fancy traps. Worked, but not enough for the premium cost.
So I just keep using water bag traps as supplemental around the animal pens.
To give an example as how well the above work....my water traps rarely collect more than 1" of bugs for the ENTIRE season
I also put water bags in the chicken coop (we average 50+ chickens)
Then use the cheap sticky glue tubes: 1 in the equipment barn, 1 in the kitchen in the house

Doing all the above...We actually have fewer pest bugs here in the country with all our animals, and all our neighbors animals than we ever had in the city !!!!


HTH!

 

[Girlwholovesherhorses]

Wow, HUGE THANK YOU!! I enormously appreciate your time, linking everything, and all the incredible tips. I already have the tabs up on my computer and I'm super excited to be buying them ASAP after responding to this. Thanks for helping make my, and my four legged family lives' a lot more pleasant!

 

[Silver City Heritage Farmstead]

A couple things in addition to rgsiiiya's comment:

Scour your place for anything that holds standing water. Mosquitoes can lay eggs in as little as a bottle cap of water!! Fill or dump anything that allows water to stagnate.

Secondly, neither flies nor mosquitoes are strong fliers. Hanging fans near entries can prevent them from getting in. Think air curtains like there are at the entrances of restaurants and grocery stores.

You can also encourage barn swallows (consume up to 850 bugs per day) and bats (up to 10,000 mosquitoes per day) to nest near you. Place bat boxes in strategic areas. Many people don't like barn swallows because of the poop. If you place a poop board about 2-3 feet below the nest, it can just be swept into a bin and tossed onto the compost heap.

 

[Girlwholovesherhorses]

Thank you! Very helpful. Maybe I'll move their waters inside then and put up the curtains