Repellent sssential oils you can use to battle bugs on your horse
by B.S., M.A. Mary Ann C. Simonds
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Mary Ann Simonds and Holistic Horse TV
Make your own non-toxic fly spary
When it comes to keeping insects off, nature actually designed the horse fairly well. Long manes with a forelock over the eyes and a tail that can swish and reach the shoulder, gives the horse good coverage.
However, since people have begun controlling genetics, not nature, recent breeds are not as effective at insect control as the older, thick-skinned breeds. Here’s an obvious example: my two wild horses graze peacefully while my thoroughbred shakes his head, trying to keep it near my mustangs’ tails to avoid annoying insects.
Watching to see which horses have flies and where they land can give you lots of information about your horse. Insects in general are attracted to energy fields considered “out of balance” or even “Noxious” (harmful) to humans and other animals. Flies will be more attracted to people and horses with unbalanced energy. When a friend stayed with me for a couple of months last summer with her event horses, we noticed that one horse was covered with flies. That was unusual for my barn. On the right side of his neck, between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae, there was a patch of flies the size of a silver dollar. Ý They created a bald spot on the horse. Observing this, we checked him and found him to be “out” in the third and fourth cervical vertebrae. After working on his neck to re-balance his energy flow, the flies quit bothering his neck.
Generally speaking, if you understand insect ecology, use biological control, and have a balanced and healthy horse, little or no fly sprays should be needed. However, if you feel you must use fly sprays, or want your horse to smell good, natural essential oil formulations offer a variety of wonderful insect controls. Bear in mind, no matter which formulas you use, insects will adapt to them in a relatively short time, so you need to rotate your sprays in a random order to not set a pattern that the hardy insects will be able to figure out and adapt to.
Your fly sprays can be sprayed as a liquid, or made into a lotion. I find that rubbing on a lotion lasts longer. One that I found that works wonderfully was developed to deal with the jungles of West Pa