Whenever my wife is riding with a group one thing is obvious.Flies will be around the other horses faces and none are around her's.Her secret,Avon Skin So Soft.Wipe it on a horses face and ears.Her second secret to fly control is vinager. 1/2 cup mixed into a horses feed morning and night.
in testing by the horse journal in march 2001 they determined the following for fly sprays
farnams BITE FREE tested #1(chemical repellent)
bio grooms REPEL 35 was a best buy(chemical repellent)
equine america's CITRONELLA SPRAY(all natural)
pfizer's SOLITUDE pour on(chemical repellent) best for pasture horses.
at my farm in nj we use fly parasites from kunafin in san antonio texas. you sign up with them and they send you the fly parasites (stingerless wasps) that are thr size of gnats, they lay their eggs inside the fly larvae and consume the flys as they grow if you start in the early spring you will have practicaly no flys. if you already have lots of flys you might have to do a double or triple dose of parasites to get the flys under control go to www.kunafin.com for details give them all your info and they will take care of you .
Joe we use Pirranha check spelling. Anyway my wife works at petsmart and you can buy it by the gallon. I am not sure how long it lasts because we spray 2 a day. We are having the pigion breast out break here in colorado and I figure fly spray is cheaper than penciline and syringes. Anyway hope this helps it works really well for us but we only hve 2 head and have a little more time for the 2 of them you may have more. Jray [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
I have been using diotomaceous earth since the start of this house fly season. The few house flies I had early on rapidly dropped off to none. The stuff even seems to reduce deer flies and horse flies. The horses do not object to it being in their feed. I get DE in a 50 pound bag for about $35. It has greatly reduced my overal fly control costs while doing a much better job than any spray I have ever found.
We have a Pirana fly system in our horse barn. It has a timer on it and we have it set to mist our barn 4 times a day for 45 seconds. It has a 30 gallon tank that uses concentrated fly spray & water. One barrel lasts 5-6 weeks. No flys (except dead ones) in the barn or in the manure pile 50' outside the barn (which we remove to the compost pile every 2 weeks). Absolutely the best $700 I ever spent.
It helps to spell it right. Try www.pyranhainc.com. Although you might find the content of the website the way I spelled more interesting [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] I'm sure you found that out though.