How To Make Homemade Fly Spray For Your Horse
There are hundreds of different commercially made fly sprays available for horse owners. The major drawback to these types of sprays is the chemicals that are in them.
Chemicals aren’t necessarily bad, but if you are reapplying fly spray all day long throughout the summer, your horse will be covered in chemicals all summer long. And commercial fly sprays are great, but sometimes it’s nice to have alternatives.
I love coming up with different recipes of homemade fly sprays for my horses. You can get as simple or as intricate as you like. The most basic and easiest homemade fly spray recipes has only 3 ingredients:
- Water
- Apple Cider Vinegar
- A few teaspoons of dawn dish soap
And when I don’t have everything I need to make a fancy fly spray, I will usually have these three items and can mix up a bottle of spray in about a minute. I use 2 cups of apple cider vinegar to 1 cup of water and a squirt or two of dawn dish soap. The dish soap helps the water/vinegar concoction to stay on the surface of the horse’s coat.
But since I have been making my own fly sprays for a long time, I have played around with different recipes, searching for the ultimate fly spray that lasts as well as the commercial products. It has not been easy! But with trying multiple different recipes that use different mixtures of essential oils, I have options that work well to keep the flies away from my horses.
I want to share my latest recipe with you. It works fairly well at keeping the horses protected for several hours at least. I find that this spray works just as good as the Pyrhanna and Bronco fly sprays, and it is a lot cheaper! And it has the added benefit of a sunscreen. This will help to protect your horse for at least a little while out in the sun. I am still trying to create the most perfect fly spray ever, but the precise recipe still eludes me. Hopefully one day I will have it figured out, and when I do I promise to share it with you.
But in the meantime, let me share with you my favorite homemade fly spray.
The Budget Equestrian Homemade Fly Spray Recipe
I know, it sounds really impressive to call this recipe my own, but it’s really just a recipe for fly spray that I like to make, and I wanted to share it with you. And feel free to change the amount of ingredients to suit your personal needs.
What You Will Need
- 1 cups White vinegar
- 2 cups Water
- 1/2 cup Spray On Sunscreen
- 50 drops Citronella oil
- 25 drops Lemongrass essential oil
- 25 drops Peppermint essential oil
- 20 drops Lavender essential oil
- 2 Tablespoons Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap
- 32 oz Spray bottle (I used a empty fly spray bottle I already had)
What You Will Do
Add all ingredients to your spray bottle. Shake well and apply. Wasn’t that easy???? And you can make a 32 ounce bottle of this fly spray for about $1.25. That’s pretty affordable, especially when you will be applying a lot of fly spray over the summer.
I always try to keep a lot of different essential oils on hand so I can play with different blends of the oils in my fly sprays. I think citronella and peppermint is my favorite, so sometimes I will just blend those two together for a little change. And I have found it is good to switch up the formulas every other time. It seems to work better by changing the scent of the fly spray.
This is a great homemade fly spray to use all the time, or when you just want to change up from using your favorite commercial brand. It’s good to have options, and more natural options for our horses is always a good thing, wouldn’t you agree?