I made my own mix that works really well AND isn’t greasy, after trying SO MANY different kinds! So here is my mix:
*1 oz. Citronella Essential Oil
*1 oz. Lemon Eucalyptus Essential Oil
*Fill the rest of the bottle with Pyranha Spray & Wipe (the BLUE bottle which is water-based, NOT the yellow)
The Pyranha has the bug killing action but no repellant…hence why I added those 2 essential oils, to also repel. Plus it makes it smell good! LOL
Has anyone tried Equiderma’s fly spray? I knew someone at a former barn that swore by it. I use their shampoo and conditioner and lotion, but I haven’t tried the fly spray.
@RhythmNCruise - I tried it last year and it did nothing for the New England bugs.
I’ve had the best results with EcoVet, Spalding, and Black Ultrashield.
did nothing for me.
Reporting back - black ultrashield is working decently. I’ll combine it with the Pyranha aerosol on legs and belly if it’s particularly buggy (it’s been so rainy), but those two are working pretty well.
Still may try the OFF! when trail riding, that worked last year. And repels ticks, which we have a problem with around here.
The sight hunting flies are my worst enemy though.
This is what I do when I am riding somewhere that there are ticks. I add Deep Woods Off (or the store brand equal) to legs, belly, and tail.
Want huge savings on fly spray? Try this. The catch is that you need to have a fly spray system in your barn like I do.
A big container of Pyranha fly spray to mix with water and fill the barrel is $235. When you need fly spray just dip a gallon jug into the barrel of prepared fly spray, fill it, rinse it off, and use that gallon to fill your own 32 ounce fly spray bottles.
That gallon of fly spray from the barrel has cost you about $4.25, which means that a 32 ounce spray bottle refill with Pyranha fly spray costs you about $1.05. I realize that the bottled stuff on the shelf at the tack store may have other additives and not be exactly the same concentration, but it works and you cannot beat the price of $4.25 per gallon.
I use Flysect Super 7. Works great on horseflies for me—I literally saw no more than a couple last summer, while my neighbor complained about them. It’s not much good on houseflies though. I also spray my stalls with premise spray before horses come in in the mornings. I fed garlic powder for years; eliminated it recently bc of cost. I guess I’ll find out soon if it made a difference.
you don’t need a whole $$$$ spray system to do this
The instructions say to use the whole 2.5 gallons of concentrate with 55 gallons of water
If you do the math, it comes down to 5.81oz per gallon of water. 2.5 gallons is 320oz (128 x 2.5). Divide by 55 gallons for the whole bottle, and you get 5.81oz per gallon, or round to 6.
I love Bye-Bye Insects. It smells good (to me, anyway) and works as well or better as anything we’ve compared it to so far. It seems to be working on my Carpenter Bees as well.
I knew when I posted that someone with a math fixation would be along shortly.
Sorry, but I just can’t see someone without a fly spray system to run buying a $235 container of concentrated fly spray and then making up over two hundred 32 ounce spray bottles.
Why would I spend nearly $2k for the Pyranha 55g drum system, just to be able to dump the whole 2.5 gallons into 55 gallons of water, when I don’t need to do that?
Ultrashield black is now $75 for 1 gallon at TSC right now. I’d buy more than 3 of those ($225) to get me through 1 season with 3 horses. Let’s say I would use 4 of them (and it’s probably a bit more than tha), that’s 16 32oz bottles for $400.
OR, I could spend $235 and have fly spray for the rest of our years on this farm 
I spent $80 last year on a gallon of Gordon’s Permethrin 10, to mix with a partial dose of a cheap fly spray (after someone here made that suggestion), to make a much more effective mix than the cheap fly spray, and at least as effective as the $75/gallon Ultrashield. We’ll leave the farm before I run out of the tiny amount of Gordon’s I use in a 32oz bottle. I wish I’d known about the fly system concentrate because I’d have done that instead.
I’d HAPPILY squirt 6oz into a gallon container and add water to it, and pour that into a 32oz bottle. I already make up a gallon at a time of my mix above.
And, if I wanted a 55 gallon drum to dump the whole 2.5 gallon container of concentrate, I could get one for $100 from Uline or somewhere similar. Easy peasy.
Smells sooo good too !
I’ve had pretty good luck by getting the cheapy stuff like Bronco and then adding a couple ounces of Ecovet and some Neem oil with a couple of drops of Dr Bonners Peppermint soap to get it all mixed
I just listened to a ‘Ask the Horse’ podcast on managing the itchy horse (June 1, 23) and it talked about paying attention to sprays that say they are a repellent, but don’t have the necessary ingredients to repel. They said that sprays need to have more active ingredients than Pyrethrin to actually repel. They liked Endure and Tri tec or Neem oil for natural.
I am using Ecovet again this year and the other day I sprayed it on a fly that landed on my horse. It started to fly off, then just nosedived to the ground, dead. Pretty powerful but smelly stuff.
I am going through a stupid amount of Ecovet this year, but it is working on the young Shire who is allergic to blackflies, gnats, etc. (He is also on Zyrtec and has a fly sheet with a neck, and a fan) So far, it is early, he isn’t a bloody mess slamming himself into the wood fence to get relief so I am counting it as a win. He just sometimes body slams the fence or barn wall once or twice!
I’m hoping to cut back once we transition from the gnats to the big old flies…
DH has figured out that he can be around it if it is sprayed on a glove and he stays upwind. He may have had an asthma attack from it on first exposure, so we are careful.
That’s interesting! I have an itchy horse and TriTec is my go-to when I need something strong (when riding, for instance) because it seems to work and cause him no skin issues at all. I’ve discovered that Equiderma’s Neem oil shampoos, conditioners, etc. do a great job of reducing his itching as well. I’m tempted to buy some of their fly spray. Right now I’m still happy with OutSmart for daily/natural spray.
At the moment, I’m using a combo of Equiderma’s Neem & Aloe spray and the cheap Dumor fly spray from TSC. I love the Equiderma stuff and it seems to do a pretty good job repeling mosquitoes and other little biting things. The Dumor seems to work as well as anything else (aka works for like 20 minutes) in the <$30/bottle range to repel stable flies, etc. but it’s much cheaper.
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