Thursday

Fly season is enough to make the fur fly




My horse is sweet and basically gentle. One might say she wouldn’t harm a fly. Well, that’s not exactly so. Lately, she’s been swishing her tail and stomping her hooves, trying to fend off flies.

Yep, it’s fly season at the stables. And these nasty little buzzers are back with a vengeance this year. Flies sort of put the proverbial fly in the ointment, when it comes to working with horses in the great outdoors.



Here’s a graphic I generated for a former client’s page. 
(I no longer work with this client, and the image rights reverted to me, so I’m sharing it on this site.)

And in the barn, more than one farrier or vet has been known to fly into a rage after swatting a few dozen flies during a dainty procedure.

Plenty of equestrians don’t mind flying into the face of danger. But a single fly in the face can change our whole demeanor, causing any of us to fly off the handle. We’ll fly by the seats of our pants, but we will nearly come unseated, if those giant B-52 bomber horseflies take bites of our mounts.

Note: This post contains a hearty selection of Amazon product links (below), related to the topic at hand and offered for readers' convenience. This site is advertiser-supported and benefits from reader participation in such offerings. However, such interaction is wholly voluntary. Generally, I try not to overload posts with promotional links. Once in a while, however, they fit the bill quite nicely.


Yes, it’s time to tell the filthy fly to go fly a kite.

What steps do you take to keep flies at bay, while you ride your bay (or chestnut or white or gray or other colored horse)? Here are several product options commonly chosen by equestrians to keep flies away. If you’ve tried any of these, I’d appreciate your comments (below) on how well they worked.

Maybe you use plenty of fly spray:


Or roll-ons:


Do you buy fly spray in larger quantities and refill your spray bottles?

Perhaps you add a fly mask: 

NOTE:  This blogger has no affiliation with any product/s mentioned in this post and received no remuneration from the manufacturer/s or product promoter/s for this post.

Do you garb your horse in a fly sheet?

And what about fly tapes and fly catchers for the horse barn?

 Shoo, flies. We have horses to ride!


Image/s
Meme generated by The Mane Point: A Haven for Horse Lovers
Horse in fly mask - public domain photo

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