Home-Made Fly spray for Horses

Horse Health Tips For Students includes information for our students about common horse health care issues.  These posts are to bring awareness to horse welfare issues - always ask your veterinarian for advice and treatment protocols for your own horse!

​This year we decided to make our own home-made fly spray!

Typically in the summer we go through 1.5 to 2, 4-L jugs of fly spray each week.  At a cost of $60 to $90 per jug, we decided that this was the year we needed to do something different.

So we researched a few different recipes and made our own from a combination of a few recipes we found.  We were surprised to learn that in-fact apple cider vinegar should not be used for fly spray as it attracts flies!  Here is our recipe:

Ingredients:
- 2 litres of vinegar
- 1 litre of Pinesol (regular scent)
- 2 tablespoons dishsoap
- 25 to 30 drops of eucalyptus essential oil (or can substitute for lemon scented essential oil)
- approx. 1 litre of water

Directions:
In an empty 4-L jug, mix the first 4 ingredients.  Add water to fill the rest of the jug.  Put into a fly spray bottle or wipe on horses with a rag. Avoid getting spray in or around their eyes.

So how did it work?  I think it actually worked quite well at repelling flies for the horses for the short-term anyway. To be honest, I couldn't tell much difference between using our home-made version and store bought fly spray.  It worked well enough for farriers, vets and students to get relief from flies on the horses while working with them and riding.  How long it lasted out in the field I couldn't say, but I didn't feel the horses were overly bothered by flies this summer.  Maybe the most important part is that is cost less than $10/week to supply fly spray for 25 horses.  We will definitely use it again next year.