Internet Horse Resource
| |
HorseQuest.com Internet Horse Resource |
by Neil Newman
Spring is just around the corner and that means fly season. There are methods of controlling flies that lay eggs in manure. There are controls for flies that are attracted to chemical baits. There are controls for flies that pass through your horse's intestines. Until now, there has not been any control for the vicious biting horse flies and the advice has generally been to wait out horsefly season. What can be done????
There are over thirty species of blood-feeding horse flies (insect family Tabanidae), known by several different names. By any name they are vicious, painful biters, making life miserable for horses and people. Horse fly bites are more than an annoyance. They can transmit disease, including Equine Infectious Anemia, Potomac Horse Fever, and possibly Lyme Disease (New England Journal of Medicine 322: 17:52 1990) The fly's sharp mouth parts saw through the skin of the victim making a bleeding wound which allows the fly to suck blood. Like the mosquito only the female bites to feed on blood. Horse flies (deer flies are similar) deposit egg masses, usually on vegetation over moist soil or near water, where the larva burrow into moist soil or the bottoms of ponds or streams. They are also able to burrow into dry soil. Larva feed on organic matter or insects, worms etc., maturing in late spring. Depending on the species and location, the life cycle can range from two months to over two years. Adult flies are extremely strong fliers and can travel long distances from their breeding sites. Flies can migrate into an area within minutes after it has been treated with insecticide, making chemical treatment futile. Continual trapping of female flies before they bite and reproduce is the only effective way to reduce fly-bite stress and horse fly population. Every fly caught trapped saves your animal from a painful bite and the danger of possible infection. For the first time a trap is now commercially available to specifically trap these vicious flies which do not respond to any of the other fly controls The HORSE PAL horsefly and deerfly trap will continually trap the horseflies entering the area throughout the horse fly season. The color photo shows the Horse Pal in use. The black and white photo shows the Capture bottle after a couple weeks of use, newly trapped horseflies and deerflies cling to the bottle while dead flies are gathering in the bottom.
 |
 |
To Learn more about the Horse Pal please visit http://www.bitingflies.com.
Write for permission to reprint.
Neil Newman