Just a quick question - are they a world wide problem? Do you all have the blooding drinking evil things to deal with? and if so, what are your solutions. My friends horse has just had a horrible time in a lesson being "eaten" alive and it made us wonder what people in hot countries do (it is 30 degrees today in the UK which is very, very hot for here).
Yes, we struggle with horse flies and mosquitos here. We're right in the height of mosquito season and the flies are making their appearance now as well. Troubles usually start in June and continue until September when it's consistently cooler at nights. We've had a couple of wet years now leaving lots of water in sloughs, etc., so mosquito numbers are up (on the plus side dragon fly numbers are also up and they consume copious amounts of mosquito larvae).
To help the horses, I spray/wipe them down with repellant. I'm using a purchased water based brand right now as I've temporarily (I hope) misplaced my homemade receipt. I prefer the water based ones as I think them somewhat safer in the long run however they don't last that long and need to be sprayed on daily.
I will also bring the horses into the barn during the day if the flies are really bad to give them some peace and quiet. The horses are in like a shot and you can see them relax right away and they're content to stay (they're really "outside" horses). They'll come in the barn around dusk for their grain supper. The mosquitos are at their most active at this time so the horses may spend a couple of hours in the barn if there is no wind to help them outside - once again, they don't mind this.
We don't get mosquitos really, the only biting / blood drinking ones are the horseflies. They start the first week of July (can almost set your calendar by them:lol and then continue until the summer cools.
fly control generally comes down to manure management. All the controls, traps, sprays, repellants in the world wont help if the manure is just left laying in the fields or piled in a pile. Given the chance they will breed faster than you can kill or repel them.
fly control generally comes down to manure management. All the controls, traps, sprays, repellants in the world wont help if the manure is just left laying in the fields or piled in a pile. Given the chance they will breed faster than you can kill or repel them.
Oh, it is just another name for a horsefly- I thought it was something different. We have these new things here that I have never seen before. They are HUGE! (bigger than horseflies) and have white backs. I have never been bitten by one but it must hurt as they drive the horses wild. I have no idea what they are- some kind of mutant alien bug I suspect.
Well I shall report back to me friend that we are not alone.
How do they affect competitions? usually it is cool and cloudy during our summers with just a few days of heat, so she has never had to compete where horseflies might distract a horse.
Sue, I shall have to show your link to our horseflies. It says they dislike the shade and prefer to stay in the sun. So why are they infesting my house :shock:? We've lived here for 14 years and never been troubled with them indoors before. Tonight I will be steam cleaning their well fed bodies off the kitchen window (it currently resembles a crime scene in miniature).
It's not just bloodsucking flies this summer. I've just hooked off yet another tick from the underside of Samson's jaw. The dogs occasionally pick up ticks, but I've never noticed them on the horses before.
Oh yes - on the subject of ticks: June is our high point for those vile creatures. I picked them off my dogs multiple times during the day and lost count of actual numbers, took a couple off the cats and a few off DH and me. This year I noticed my cremello horse had the odd one attached to her (face, neck and under tail) plus my sorrel had one on her (under tail again) - I can only assume that the ticks were so desperate for a meal they tried the horses.
At dusk there is a swarm of about 2,000 around the cows. -puke-
Every sensible person around here has a fly mask with ears. Look in the ears after 1 day of not having it on, and the whole ear is a bloody scabby mess.
At dusk there is a swarm of about 2,000 around the cows. -puke-
Every sensible person around here has a fly mask with ears. Look in the ears after 1 day of not having it on, and the whole ear is a bloody scabby mess.
hiya thay have been bad up to now.
my pony and horse had them on them and as quick as i killed them there were more.
even on the yard i bathed them and horse flys apeared again some quite big so i was squashin them so thay fell off and thay ended up as spider fodder then i found 4 of them in his groin.
1 landed on his sheif and the next thing i saw was blood.
i have kept mine in at the moment as its been hot and with the flys my barn owners pony was bitten to pieaces so we washed her down and applyed savalon to the fly bites.
even with fly sheets thay are a pain.
horse flys are not manuare related some times wooded areas have loads of them.
we have padocks and there are treesthe only water is in the troughs.
and thay plage the horses.
and on the tracks to no water ect but loads of horse flys.
and small biteing ones thay swell up full of blood thay get in to the horses ears and suckle there.
so both of mine ware fly bonnets with ears but my pony roles his one off.
I live in North Georgia. You name the biting insect and we have it. With all the rain we've had paired with the last two VERY mild winters mosquitoes, horse flies, no-see-ems, stable flies, yellow flies etc, are HORRIBLE. The "good" thing about the horse flies is they are slow so they are easy to whack.
Fly bait, manure control, fly predators, sprays etc. help but still they are a constant battle.
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