The Old-Time Way To Fly-Proofing Your Horses

I was born to ranch life, and if there’s one thing that turns me on, it is checking out old homemade remedies and animal care articles. A regular favourite of mine is an ancient cowboy preparation utilized by folk in my childhood part of the world in western Colorado to keep their horses free from those pesky flies.

So , are you all agog about this preparation? It is a highly classified, for-your-eyes-only secret of the ranches around there.

In confidence, just between me and you, here is the secret: bacon grease.

You heard that right. I did say bacon grease. You pour it out right from the frying pan into an aluminum can once you’ve finished with the breakfast chores. At one time, I fill up bacon grease to the brim in 3 or four gigantic soup cans, mostly during winter, and then use the grease generously in spring, summer, and fall to keep the flies off the horses and keep the horses ecstatic. I store the grease in the fridge or the chiller when it isn’t in use.

How to utilise the Bacon Grease

Though it may be a little untidy, utilising the grease is absolutely basic. Take a tin of bacon grease out of storage and heat it until it becomes a little glutinous and begins to run. Then apply the grease liberally to your pony. Spread it around your horse’s eyes, ears, and face. Splash it all round your horse’s middle, top and bottom. Don’t spare the throat, chest, belly, and all the areas around the hind legs and the rump. Ensure you cover the midline from the withers to the tail head. If your pony seems to have an itchy tail, you want to dab on a little bit of grease on the tail head, too.

Off-the-shelf fly sprays are not particularly effective beyond a few hours. Bacon grease will keep the flies at arm’s length for anywhere up to a week. Bacon grease spares none of the fly types: the regulars, the giant pony type, mosquitoes, and even those pestilential “no-see-ums,” the little beasts with the obvious bite that you can barely see.

I’ll certify that bacon grease works like a charm from personal experience. Two of my horses are ultra-sensitive to flies and mosquitoes. One of them, my quarter horse gelding Maker, goes nuts if a giant horse fly lands on him, bucking and swapping ends like he is making an attempt to shorten his limbs by a couple of inches. When he’s got the war grease on, though, he is cool. My other huffy pony, my mustang mare, gets welts, eruptions and swellings when flies bite her. She too finds great solace from regular applications of bacon grease.

The Inside Track to Repelling Flies

As long as you are not allergic to smelling like a short-order cook in a windowless and fanless kitchen after sessions with the horses and bacon grease, it is one swell cure for keeping the flies away from your horses. But bacon grease might not be enough for horses with hide that’s ultra sensitive to fly bites. For such horses, as well , I have wonder recipes in the form of some nutritional supplements that help prime the system from the inside. Two of these recipes are top quality mangosteen juice and apple cider vinegar.

Every day, I treat my extra-sensitive horses to an ounce of XanGo mangosteen juice. I mix the juice in their feed or simply squirt it into their mouths with a syringe. My mare, the one that gets sores when flies bite her, is much less susceptible after the juice. Flies appear to be turned off when my gelding Maker has had some of the juice. In the days before I found mangosteen juice, I used to mix up a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar with the feed given to my horses twice each day. I’ve also had success with using apple cider vinegar topically to repel flies. I often mix the vinegar with water and Avon’s Skin So Soft and apply it.

Experience has taught me that the ideal combination of home-made treatments to keep my horses safe from flies is coats of bacon grease on the exterior and doses of XanGo mangosteen juice or apple cider vinegar to the inside. This combination works like a charm in keeping my horses happy and fly-resistant the healthiest way!

Horses are Heather Toms passion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers, like all things about country supply