Are you ready for this? It's a super-duper rancher secret. Here goes:
Bacon grease.
Yup, I do suggest bacon grease, poured directly from the fry pan into an aluminum can after you're done making breakfast. I accumulate 3 or 4 giant soup cans' worth of bacon grease at a time, especially during the winter, and after that utilize it lavishly in the spring, summer, and fall to keep the horses happy and free of flies. I keep it in the fridge or freezer in between usages.
How to Use Bacon Grease to Keep Flies Off Horses
Use it around your horse's eyes, ears, and face. Slather it down your horse's midline, top and bottom. If your horse has a scratchy tail, you may put a little bit on the tail head.
Unlike normal fly sprays, which are just good for a few hours, bacon grease will drive away flies for up to a week. These include regular flies, huge horse flies, mosquitoes, and even "no-see-ums," those small bugs that you can horses near me barely see but bite nevertheless.
I understand the bacon grease works due to the fact that I have two horses that are super-reactive to fly and mosquito bites. My quarter horse gelding, Walker, will actually buck and run around like a mad-man if a huge horse fly arrive on him. When he's using the grease, he seldom reacts by doing this in pasture. The other sensitive horse, my mustang mare Samantha, develops welts and swellings from fly bites. She likewise seldom shows signs of these swellings when I use bacon grease routinely.
Repelling Flies from the Inside Out
Bacon grease works excellent to keep the flies away from horses, specifically if you do not mind smelling like a short-order cook after you're done. For horses with sensitive skin that are reactive to fly bites, I've also found that specific nutritional supplements assist drive away flies from the within out. 2 that work well are high-quality mangosteen juice and apple cider vinegar.
I feed my horses an ounce of XanGo mangosteen juice daily, either in their feed or simply by spraying it in their mouths with a syringe. Prior to I discovered the mangosteen juice, I fed the horses 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar two times a day with their feed.
Over time I have actually found that the best combination of natural home remedy to keep the flies far from my horses is to slather bacon grease on the outdoors and feed the XanGo mangosteen juice or apple cider vinegar internally. Together they work like a treat to keep my horses happy and fairly without flies-- naturally!
The most natural approach of breeding horses is when the stallion runs loose with the mares however nowadays there are three other main techniques utilized:
Artificial insemination where semen is collected from the stallion and put into the mare synthetically
In-hand breeding, where stallion and mare are united in hand under controlled circumstances
Embryo transfer, when an embryo is taken from one mare and implanted into another who will carry it for the complete term of the pregnancy
Enabling a stallion to run with his mares is the most traditional approach and the horses are able to behave as they would in their natural wild state. In this circumstance it is never possible to be certain which mares have actually been mated and on what dates.
The mare and the stallion are brought together and held by handlers. Mares are regularly put in hobbles to avoid kicks and injuries to valuable stallions.
Artificial insemination has actually ended up being a lot more typical as it is making reproducing with top stallions available to all. It likewise minimizes the management of the mares as they can be inseminated in your home or at their local veterinarians rather than having to take a trip to the stallion. It does require a high level of expertise and veterinary assistance to produce high fertility rates. Lots of stallions can be taught to utilize a synthetic vaginal area which gathers the semen. This is then cooled or frozen if not used right away and can then be delivered to a mare anywhere around the globe.
Embryo transfer is the most contemporary of the approaches and has been developed or efficiency horses to allow competitors mares to continue competing whilst still producing progeny. This technique indicates it is also possible for the mare to produce more than one foal a year and does not put the stress on the body that having a number of foals over a lifetime would. The embryo is taken and transferred to a recipient mare that is utilized just to produce the foal thus permitting the donor mare to get back to competitive life.