Summer Time: Beat the Bots

So as anyone who owns a horse or even knows a lot about a horse will know that summer time can be a time of misery for some poor horses and owners... Why? The bugs!

In New Zealand in summer we get bee's, wasps, house flies (I hate!!!), horse flies, gnats and BOT FLIES!!!

I hate bot flies and my mare hates them as well! Bot flies pretty much are flies that will lay their eggs on a horses legs or under their belly. As you can imagine the itchy-ness causes the horse to scratch and because a horse doesn't have arms they use their mouth.. And this is how the evil bots work. When a horse scratches the bots with its mouth some of the baby's get swallowed.. But alas this does not kill the evil little minions... No, this is just the beginning of their master minded plan. So the botfly larvae have barbs on their body's that attach them to the stomach lining of the horse which they eat. EWWW! As you can imagine the pain the horse will be feeling to have its stomach lining eaten.

**I Do not own image

Botfly larvae **Do not own image

Bot fly knife **I do not own image

So its our job as horses owners and care givers to get rid of the pests.
From past experiences I can tell you  what helps a lot.



1. If you see botfly on a horses leg there is a big chance the horse has already swallowed some of the larvae so you need to act fast. So go to your local saddler shop and there is a special worming paste especially for botflies.

I Do not own images

2. Using the worming paste does work but if your horse has bot on its legs and stomach
it will just re-infect itself. So that's when a special knife called the bot knife comes in. With this bot knife you scrape the knife down the horses leg to scrape the bot off. (You can't cut the horse unless you do it extremely wrong). Bots as I said have barbs so they do not come off easily. But make sure you try to get all the bot off the legs. Do this about twice a day if possible..

3. One thing I find handy once you scrape the legs is to rub baby oil on the stomach and legs. (It makes the coat slippery and harder for the flies to lay eggs on the horse. Once you have treated the belly and legs worm your horse with the botfly worming paste.

4. Wash your hands! Believe it or not but humans can get infected as well.

5. Other things that help are horse insect spray and fly sheets :)

I hope this helps :)
I guarantee a happier horse after this.
-HorseFrenzy