Fly Away Fly

By Sarah Gee
©Voice, May 2006

If you have horses you have flies, there’s just no getting around it. For the horseperson, flies are a fact of life. That does not mean, however, that they are liked or welcomed. Flies are the enemy, and a more insidious enemy you’d be hard pressed to find.

It’s a fly’s world. From desert to tundra, from mountain to grassland, no place in the equine world in fly free. Some varieties, such as the twenty odd species of tsetse flies in sub-Saharan Africa, are habitat and location specific. Others, such as Black Flies and the 800-plus species of Culicoides (midges, punkies, and no-see-ums), are universal tormentors. Horn flies flourish in the cooler regions of both northern and southern hemispheres, while warble flies and botfiles breed successfully in just about all climates. Face flies and houseflies are annoyances most everywhere.

In addition to their worldwide presence, flies are extremely propitious procreators. A single fly buzzing around on May 1 can leave more than 1,000 adult offspring as well as 25,000 additional eggs, larva, and pupa behind by the end of June.

These culprits transmit contagious diseases, parasitic infections, and fungal spores. Many insect-borne ailments are debilitating and some are life threatening, even lethal. Some flies transmit disease mechanically, directly transferring infectious organisms from one horse to another. Others serve as intermediate hosts in the life cycle of transmitted parasites. Still others use the horse as an incubator of sorts for their own young. And, finally, there are the hordes of flying insects that are just plain irritating, firing up skin allergies with the venom of their bites.

In an effort to find relief from the buzzing hordes, horses may actually injure themselves. Self-mutilation occurs when horses bite themselves to ward off flies or rub their tails, manes, and patches of skin until raw to relieve the itch caused by fly bites. They’ve also been known to harm their eyes as they look for relief by rubbing their heads against their knees and stall doors. In addition, some horses will stand in water until their joints swell to keep flies from biting their legs.

For such tiny creatures, flies wield an inordinate degree of power over considerably grander animals. So, how do you combat that power?

First and foremost, be clean. The best way to control fly populations is to make your property undesirable to flies. Flies like moist, wet, dark places. Dispose of water-catching refuse and fill in those perpetual puddles on your property. Install dry wells under outside faucets and scrub buckets regularly. Cover feed bins to keep flies from feasting. Pick up manure and soiled bedding daily and keep it dry by spreading it. If it must be stored, use a covered container of some sort. Finally, take out the trash. Garbage is the equivalent of a fly’s romantic boudoir. Keep it far from your barn.

Next, you might want to try several options that fall under the heading "Nature’s Fly Control." If you have a pond, consider stocking it with fish that eat fly larvae. Another option would be to welcome insect eating birds such as barn swallows or purple martins to your property. If you don’t have vampire issues, you might also want to build a bat house, as bats are notorious for their insect-based diets and insatiable appetites. Then there are wasps, not the kind that sting but a smaller variety. You can have wasp eggs shipped to your barn each month where they are spread in your manure pile. When they hatch, the wasps eat the fly larvae they find there.

Insecticides, repellents, and additives are other lines of defense. Automatic mister systems work well in sizeable barns dispensing measured doses of insecticide or fly repellent several times throughout the day. Barn exteriors may also be painted with special fly repelling paint such as Bug Ban. Fly repellents that can be sprayed or wiped directly on the horse’s coat are another option, especially for pastured horses and those being worked outside. These repellents may be chemical or non-chemical/natural. Chemically-treated fly strips may also be braided into manes and tails or attached to browbands. The natural version of this would be to use pine branches. Lastly, there are several feed additives that safely pass through equine digestive systems and kill larvae in fresh manure.

Fly traps are yet another way to go. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as a nice length of fly tape covered in fly carcasses. Unless, it’s the hearty "zap" of an electric fly zapper as it catches juicy horse fly. Jar traps baited with chemicals or rotting meat are equally effective.

Finally, you can try to control where flies land by using fly sheets, fly masks and fly leg wraps. If cleanliness isn’t a factor, a good roll in the mud will garner nearly identical results.

In closing, effective fly control isn’t accomplished with a single product or approach. A multi-pronged attack is always more successful so try combining three or four of the above suggestions. Flies are beastly nuisances but they are not unconquerable.