Where I live the watersheds are high mountain country mostly off limits to even hikers.
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You are misunderstanding. Everyone lives in a watershed. Period. It’s the term for how the water drains. When it rains, the water that hits the ground and eventually flows into a larger body of water, whether it be a river, bay, or straight to the ocean.
Here’s a map of all the watershed boundaries in North America, which can be even further subdivided:
https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/watershed-map-north-america
Sometimes there are protected areas within the watershed. Usually there is some overarching public or private organization that works within the entire watershed region and manages these protected areas.
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Ok good point. Around here it’s a term reserved for the land in behind the city water supply. The flatlands are pretty much built up and water has a short run to the ocean in creeks or culverts.
In that sense, I suspect it’s become a colloquialism for an area managed by your local watershed organization or where there is just a lot of water movement. Scientifically, the definition doesn’t vary.
Built up or not, your flatlands are still part of a greater watershed, even if the water doesn’t have far to drain before it reaches the main body of water.
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I have only been back into horses since 2019, so my experience is from then to now. Eco Vet is my favorite fly spray as far as efficacy goes, but damn if it doesn’t smell like something died in your wall and you used your grandmother’s musty perfume to cover it!
And not only does it smell absolutely terrible, but it exacerbates respiratory issues if you spray it indoors/down wind and can be smelled from light years away,
That said, I still use it… even if it makes me the enemy of the people and makes me gag while driving home if it lands on my clothes.
I honestly hate the stuff, but it works well and isn’t horrifying as far as I know when it comes to the environment.
ETA: even when adding to what I like to call “pulse points”, my trainer can still smell it from outside the arena.
Is there any evidence that using insecticides in a fly spray (eg pyrethrins) is actually useful in preventing bites or reducing the ambient bugs? Why not focus on a repellent? My vet has given the nod to using DEET on my horses. Nothing lasts more than about 6 hrs, tho.
Yeah, there’s an incredible amount of evidence, because these things are seriously regulated and studied in depth, due to the implications in human health. Think malaria, sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis, bartonellosis, etc etc.
Pyrethrins/pyrethroids ARE repellents.
For example:
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I try hard to use as many physical and environmental barriers as possible. In my non scientific opinion, the disposable plastic bottles fly sprays come in are a greater environmental concern than the sprays themselves.
I personally don’t like fly boots, but good fly masks and sheets are an essential component of my fly protection plan. I give my horses access to a shady barn w strong fans during the worst of heat and fly season. I’ve used fly predators before but since I live in a neighborhood w cows they weren’t super effective. Picking up poop helps a bit too I think.
This!! I was AWOL for a little bit because of a busy week but you hit the nail on the head! I live in a very fragile area and one of the few places that is doing relatively okay, but we have to be very very careful. Like you said, it’s not just ‘what if it rains on my horse and the fly spray gets washed away and ends up in the ocean somehow’, but more about the larger ecosystem. Even things like applying the spray on a windy day need to be considered - it doesn’t all end up on the horse. I’m not a granola per se but I am a biologist and an enjoyer of Maine’s natural beauty, and it’s super important to me that the area stays that way. Same reason I stopped using a Seresto collar, in addition of course to the adverse effects that were reported.
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I’m very new to horse ownership so bear with the questioning here - but at the barn where I’ve been riding for the past few years nobody uses fly sheets, and I’ve heard horror stories about flies getting stuck under said sheets. I have a mare prone to nervousness and she is definitely on the hotter end of the spectrum. Is it dangerous to use a fly sheet on her in case that happens? I don’t want her to have a pasture accident or something.
I’ve heard the same stories, but in…30 years of keeping horses, with multiple in sheets every year, that has happened exactly zero times.
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I mean this kindly, horses have accidents. Full stop. Fly sheets are not terribly dangerous. I believe my horse once or twice has had a fly under his sheet. His antics then were less than his antics running from flies when he didn’t have a sheet on. In my experience NO fly spray offers as much protection from flies as a good sheet. Sprays wear off quickly. I think sheets with attached necks and belly bands are less likely to have a fly get under them than styles w out necks and belly bands.
Many barns don’t do fly sheets / boots / masks. It’s labor intensive to take them on and off a bunch of horses. I don’t believe it’s safe to leave fly sheets (or any type of blanket) on 24/7. Horses might have an injury hidden by the blanket that could be missed as an example of a danger of leaving them on 24/7
ETA I don’t do fly boots bc of the labor needed to take them in and off and my horse once developed a bad rub from a boot that turned into a nasty summer sore. So I spray legs. Also, according to my calculations I save money by using a fly sheet compared to spraying whole bodies twice a day.
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Whether you need fly sheets or masks will depend both on your region, and your specific place in that region.
I am in a region with only moderate fly issues compared to some others where blackflies fill the air.
At my suburban barn, we get mosquitoes in the park but they linger close to water and don’t come up to the barn in any great number. But I use flyspray to ride in the park. Once in a while we run into a big black biting deer fly or similar. Ticks are not endemic here.
20 miles away in agricultural land adjacent to cows those big black cow flies are endemic and when my mare is out on pasture there, her eyes get a little puffy from them crawling all over her tear ducts. I still don’t use a mask or sheet on unattended pasture life.
I did buy a quality fly sheet for camping and travel to other regions with worse biting flies.
So really you need to see if the flies make your horse so frantic that a sheet is the best solution.
Accidents could also happen with rain sheets and turnout blankets. Making sure they fit well and are in good repair is important. Where I live, depending on your situation, a rain sheet or turnout blankets might be necessary, a lesser risk than your horse getting hypothermia and shivering in turnout
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Yeah, Ms. Beastie is blanketed/has a rain sheet as well. We had a night where the windchill was -30 recently. I know it’s the ongoing debate and a lot of horses don’t need to be blanketed, but her winter coat just never came in well and she’s thin-skinned and it’s just generally brutally cold here, so I prefer it. The way I see it, the barn does blanket changes, it’s wicked cold, and able to withstand it without hypothermia doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s as comfortable as she could be with a blanket.
She has white scleras so I have a fly mask for UV protection if nothing else.
I got her in January so I’m not sure what the fly situation is like here. Horseflies/biting flies aren’t a huge problem in this geographical area but whether we’re close enough to the woods to have blackflies remains to be seen. Fortunately I’m not in an area with major mosquitoborne illness risks, though I’m still wary because it does happen. Most of what I see at my lesson barn 30mins from the boarding barn is just houseflies, but they still annoy the horses substantially.
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I live in FL. As @Scribbler alluded to, my area is basically fly hell. We pretty much have all the flies all the time. Literally flies in January are totally normal. Many a time I have put winter blankets or sheets in horses overnight and then fly gear during the day. So my need for fly protection may be far greater than where you live!
Also hoof and skin quality along with ground conditions are things to consider. A horse w sensitive skin / allergies may be far more irritated by flies than another horse. Poor hoof quality / very hard ground can result in hoof damage from horses stomping due to flies.
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I really like the OutSmart fly spray.
(BLOOD/GROSS WARNING)
When I was living in GA I went down south to Warner Robbins one time and I was just… flabbergasted. I thought the flies and mosquitoes were bad where I was living but I wasn’t prepared for the gnats. I was at a horse show in shorts and I scratched a bug bite apparently… and I looked down and there must have been at least ten, maybe 20 gnats drinking my blood, no lie. I felt like a zebra covered in flies on National Geographic or something… shudders.
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Fortunately, gnats are the least troublesome flies we deal with but they are gross. The bot flies, deer flies and horse flies are the worst for us. Gnats are super annoying though. They just don’t leave big welts.
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Horses on open range can seek shelter in brush or gullies and can stand huddled up together which generates a lot of body heat. They can run around to warm up. Also horses in subartic climates get obese in the summer but are showing ribs by February. Typically there are populations of feral horses thriving in dry cold winters (as well as deserts) but you don’t find them thriving in our rain forest climate.
A horse tossed out alone for the day in a smallish paddock has no resources to keep warm. No herd gallop, no herd huddle, no gullies and brush. It’s not fair to extrapolate from what a feral or ranch horse on the range can do in the climate it grew up in, to what you can expect of a horse kept in a small enclosure in the winter.
A shivering horse is the most pitiful sight, and it means you’ve failed in your management that day. So there is absolutely a place for turnout blankets and rainsheets especially when you import a horse from another climate belt.
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Just to join this very interesting thread:
OP: In my experience if a horse and fly sheet get ‘tangled’ in any way it is the fly sheet that fails.
Not sure if this product is still on the market but we used ‘Still Tails’ which is an herbal two years ago and it was the ONLY thing that kept the flies off their legs for the farrier (in the sun). I believe it was developed by quarter horse people for showing, but it worked for my warmbloods.
Otherwise, the barrier methods (fly mask, fly sheet, boots) and SWAT work the best for me.
Also to note, if you swipe on an herbal or regular fly spray, as opposed to spraying it on, more of it gets on the skin and your horse may have a reaction/swelling.
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