I’m reporting back that this stuff does work pretty well and doesn’t make me cough or feel like I’m dying. The initial scent is reminiscent of EcoVet and had me in a panic at first, but it’s no more irritating to me than any other chemical fly spray. It also stays on well which means a nasty residue feeling on the coat, especially if the horse gets sweaty. But my sensitive skinned horses haven’t gotten hives or scurf from it like they might with other oil based ones.
5 Likes
I’ve been using it and feel the same way.
A cloud of it came back at me in a sudden wind gust and I didn’t die. I don’t like how it makes my horses coat feel, which is probably why it sticks. So I’ve just been using it on legs and his underside for the most part. Mostly just a sensory issue for me! It doesn’t seem to be irritating him. I think I’ll stick with Ultrashield Black though.
5 Likes
That’s a great idea! I’m going to try that.
Back in the day when I boarded at a place that was near a natural park and the ticks were awful - I sewed a cattle ear tag onto my horses’ fly wraps. That kept the ticks off. My vet at the time said to make sure it was a pyrethrin ear tag and not an organophosphate tag and I should be safe. It really worked. I don’t know that much about the current types of ear tags so I don’t know if organophosphate ones are still a thing.
1 Like
Just a heads up that this stuff is eligible for the Memorial Day 25% off at Smart Pak if anyone is looking to try:
https://www.smartpakequine.com/pt/ultrashield-gold-26880
Code is Memday25
And if you spend 200 bucks, they’ll send you a $50 gift card, too. It does expire pretty quick but I was able to stock up for summer–5 gallons of fly spray for about $54/gallon. Score!
5 Likes
After reading all the great reviews I tried the Ultrashield Gold fly spray. At first I liked the smell, but after awhile I found it nauseating. It is very strong and doesn’t go away. The big issue though, is that it made my usually calm gelding go crazy when we were outside, even though he was in familiar surroundings. He was truly panicked. I think the smell interfered with his normal sense of smell. It kept the bugs away and did not irritate his skin, but he has never been so agitated in his home environment. I have used the Black Absorbine fly spray for years with no problems and intend to stick with it.
2 Likes
I’ll chime in with my review as I have almost used up a bottle.
I really like it. Definitely seems to makes the flies disappear and stay away. The smell is not horrible to me. The sprayer is weirdly aggressive, my horse danced away from it at first, but has calmed down and doesn’t seem to react anymore. I bought several more bottles during memorial day sales. I do think it works better the the black bottle Ultra Shield that I was using before. I also feel like you don’t have to use as much for it to be super effective.
2 Likes
I have been using this for a couple weeks, just now seeing this thread though. It seems to work well - my only complaint is that the sprayer on my bottle is wonky. Instead of distributing a fine mist cloud, it has almost a “fan” pattern so it sprays out in a flat wide line and I have to spray 2x as much to get coverage.
1 Like
I agree the sprayer isn’t great. I stand back a bit farther from the horse. Does seem to coat the legs pretty well…and I tend to focus it there mostly because of how gross it makes the coat feel.
Now I will say that my chestnut horse developed some scaly patches on his belly that are losing hair. I have no idea if this is from the fly spray or the bugs themselves (he did have some mild hives), or if he rolled in ants at some point. As he’s allergic to allll the bugs. No skin problems anywhere else, so I am suspecting that it is not from this spray but just putting that out there since I was focusing on legs and belly some days, as we had these little flies that were absolutely swarming his belly in the arena for a while.
1 Like
Anyone else swapped just the sprayer out for one that offers more control? I started doing this many years ago when I stumbled across a product development survey on how much overspray (waste) customers would tolerate. More waste=more refills=more profit.
I’m now using a sprayer that has a vertical fan spray pattern which really limits overspray on legs and also works well on the body. No more 360 degree fan sprayers for me.
3 Likes
I’m curious which sprayer does this!
I use these spray bottles, which are larger than a quart, and also have a wide neck for easy filling. Haven’t bought fly spray in a spray bottle in yeeeeaaaars, only gallons.
1 Like
I forget where I found the vertical sprayer i’m using. But the newer bottles of Ecovet have a spray nozzle that can be switched between vertical snd horizontal spray patterns. And they claim it even sprays with the bottle upside down.
1 Like
I just found a new (to me, anyway) fly spray by Farnam called Equisect that seems to do a little better job than Pyranha Nullifly, which is the water-based version of Pyranha. It’s also much less expensive than the Ultrashield products. The smell is different—not great but not bad either. I’d been using different things and adding more permethrin to them but both horses reacted so went back to Nullifly and then found this. I trade them off and I also use Swat around their eyes, which seems to do better than anything for that area and they actually like having it applied. So far, we’ve had the worst fly year here in TX I’ve ever seen (22 years) but it seems to be improving finally. I also put them on Simplifly feed-through and kept up with the stinky fly traps outside away from the barn. I HATE flies!!!
2 Likes
Oh neat, that’s good to know, thank you!
I also buy ecovet by the gallon so don’t get eyeballs on stuff like this! 
Ultrashield Black comes with a vertical and horizontal sprayer.
1 Like
