Horse fly prevention

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claytonl2010

claytonl2010

Active Member
I see plenty of threads and posts on numerous sites about tick prevention, but what are people using to prevent horse fly bites. After suffering a bite to the knee early this week which resulted in me being prescribed enough antibiotics to cure a small town of ebola I'm curious to know what prevention methods people are using.
 
We get plenty around July and can get tagged just outside the back door, even through a t shirt. The only thing I’ve known which works is ‘smidge’ I basically blather every inch of bare skin and then I’m usually ok, only time I then get tagged is if I’ve missed a bit!
 
Sounds like us shooters / country people, / fishermen not been mentioned yet, get unfairly persecuted by everything going that is after blood to keep alive,,,,, then along comes the officials for licencences,,,, excuse me but can you prove that was shot with the prescribed ammunition, otherwise i will have to slap you with a huge fine, and confiscate all your legaly held weapons,,,, just in case you might think of commiting a crime
Ray
 
The way I do it works for tsetse so it should work for horseflies.
DEET mixtures are intended for skin and Permethrin for clothes.
I spray outer clothing with Permethrin and allow to dry. Permethrin bonds to the material and is purported to last for at least 6 washes.
For skin, I use a 30-50% DEET formulation in an oil/emulsion base.(IIRC Boots sell one) This will last pretty much all day even in an African safari situation, I have found.
Peter
 
Interesting to know what you are calling Horse Flies. If they are grey and very light footed they be "Old Maids"or Cleggs (Haematopata pluvialis) found throughout Britain painful as the insert their beak..
The other two The Horse fly (Tabanus bromius) bites humans and is found in Southern Britain much harder bite but heavy footed.
The Horse fly that horses bolt from which gives a very nasty bite (Chrysops caecutiens) is noisy and can be heard coming, hence horses leg it quick. Nasty if they hit you.
Some repellents work but if you are working hard in woodland after summer rain you are going to get hammered by Cleggs anyway, some areas seem far worse than others. The same with some Mosquitos, I have been bitten through a heavy shirt and tweed plus fours when working in a particular wood.
 
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The fourth Horseman said:
Interesting to know what you are calling Horse Flies. If they are grey and very light footed they be "Old Maids"or Cleggs (Haematopata pluvialis) found throughout Britain painful as the insert their beak..
The other two The Horse fly (Tabanus bromius) bites humans and is found in Southern Britain much harder bite but heavy footed.
The Horse fly that horses bolt from which gives a very nasty bite (Chrysops caecutiens) is noisy and can be heard coming, hence horses leg it quick. Nasty if they hit you.
Some repellents work but if you are working hard in woodland after summer rain you are going to get hammered by Cleggs anyway, some areas seem far worse than others. The same with some Mosquitos, I have been bitten through a heavy shirt and tweed plus fours when working in a particular wood.
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I'm not particularly sure it was a horse fly mate, I'm purely going on what the doctor said. My first guess was a spider seen as there was two puncture marks next to each other, It was in woodland and I didn't hear any flies or see anything I just felt the bite
 
Bit early for biting insects in these parts .Most biting insects of the flying kind home in to the carbon dioxide we breath out so without some sort of discouragement you are going to get nailed .Skin so soft is still the favourite with the added bonus there is no need to moisturise when you get home .
 
We re infested with them in the back garden at home every year. I bought a small version of the the thing you see in horse paddocks with a kind of black ball with a hood on it, seemed to catch a few, but we put it out quite late as we seem to get bothered by them more early summer time so will see how it goes this year, not a lot of good for when you're out and about though :D
 
There has been some very interesting research been done on Zebra's and their stripes. Turns out that if you put a zebra strip rug on a horse in UK then the incidence of insect bites/attacks plummets. It would appear that Zebra have possibly evolved stripes to lessen insect attack and so exposure to lots of nasty diseases. I think I heard it on Radio 4 a few months ago.

D
 
Cyres said:
There has been some very interesting research been done on Zebra's and their stripes. Turns out that if you put a zebra strip rug on a horse in UK then the incidence of insect bites/attacks plummets. It would appear that Zebra have possibly evolved stripes to lessen insect attack and so exposure to lots of nasty diseases. I think I heard it on Radio 4 a few months ago.

D
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That’s why I never go stalking without my fly repellent outfit

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