How to make the BEST 5 gallons of DIY HORSE FLY & TICK SPRAY repellent - with full recipe!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ค. 2024
- A quick video showing a recipe for 5 gallons of horse fly & tick repellent spray.
There's plenty video's on TH-cam showing good recipes for horse fly spray, but most are only showing how to make the fly spray in small batches, i.e. a 32oz spray bottle.
In this video we make a whole 5 gallon bucket full!
I usually make two of these batches for a total of 10 gallons at the beginning of the warm season, and it almost lasts through the summer (with three horses). Store the bucket[s] in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight.
At the end of the video there's a cost break-down (spoiler: it works out to costing about $2.00 per spray-bottle-refill)
Recipe used in this video is:
- 32 oz Aloe juice (100% Aloe juice drink)
- 16 oz White Vinegar
- 16 oz Neem oil
- 4 oz Eucalyptus oil
- 4 oz Citronella
- 4 oz Dish-washing Liquid
- 8 oz Mineral oil
+ enough clean water to make up 5 gallons (~19 liters) of spray
This particular recipe is quite Neem Oil heavy, and some might object to the strong smell. There's plenty of alternatives to this exact recipe, such as reducing the Neem Oil quantity, and adding instead other ingredients like lemon oil, lavender oil, and/or peppermint oil. The high concentration of Neem Oil in this recipe is to repel ticks effectively.
I will likely make future batches with more aloe juice, as it's so cheap in this neck of the woods.
The 4 fl oz dish soap used in this recipe isn't to emulsify ALL of the oils. It would take much too much soap to achieve that. Mixing before spraying is still necessary, despite the dish soap, as the end product will still separate.
Of course, this isn't exclusively for horses. Other pets can benefit from this fly repellent also, and we use it on ourselves too.
And as with any and all of these concoctions, you need to make sure your horse/pet isn't allergic to any of its ingredients!!
I used it on my cows and it worked and it also worked on my horses.
Thank you so much "Yesterday Farm"! I used this last year and plan to make more this year. So appreciate the time you took in making this video.
This is the only thing that has worked for me. My wife and I have bread German Shepards for over 30 years. This is great.
I am making this stuff ASAP.
hello i just try this spray in my cows it kill them flies immediately i fallow direction except i use half of the essential oils and dint have aloe on hand i wonder how long will a plication will last thank you my cows are relief
Hi, I'm back with another question 🤣 We grow Aloe Vera in our garden, do you think it's alright if I just mixed it in the blender (without the spikes of course)? We use it as a healing cream for our horses when they're injured and since it's 100% natural it should work too right?
I also can't find mineral oil anywhere 😩 Is it part of the actual fly repellent part or just so the mixture sticks together more because in that case I could replace it with coconut oil too?
Thanks again, this recipe is so helpful! :)
Hi, on this recipe does it work on regular fly? Cause I raise quails and dogs out door. Thanks for info!
Yes, works GREAT against flies. Doesn't last as good as the toxic, off-the-shelf stuff though, unfortunately.
Hi! This is such a great and helpful video! Where did you get the essential oils? Thanks!
Thanks so much.
Not sure where you're located, so not sure how useful this info is going to be, but I usually buy these essential oils off eBay from a seller in Virginia called "wf-medical". They sell many different oils, and in many different sizes/quantities. You can even choose between plastic and aluminum containers on some of the oils (with the larger sizes". The other option is on Amazon, from a seller called GREENHEALTH. It's the same brand, and might even be the same seller.
@@yesterdayfarm5273 This was very helpful! Thank you so much! I will be trying this recipe soon.
@@roryhorses8736 Awesome! By the way, I double checked; the Neem oil was from a different seller (but also on eBay); look for "NEEM OIL 100% PURE VIRGIN UNREFINED ORGANIC COLD PRESSED' or similar. The ALOE JUICE was from Walmart. CVC, etc. also has it but at a higher price. Just make sure it's 100% Aloe Juice (which the Aloe Juice at Walmart is).
@@yesterdayfarm5273 I tried it and it works very well for my horses! Thanks so much again!!
@@roryhorses8736 AWESOME!!! 👍👍👍
Any other options for Mineral oil?
You can forgo the Mineral Oil completely. It should work just fine without mineral oil.
Great stuff! How many days does it stay active or do you have to spray it on a daily basis?
Thanks.
Unfortunately its effectiveness is counted more in hours than days. In summer, we apply this spray twice a day.
There's some VERY expensive horse fly spray that we bought a few years back that lasted longer I think, but it was full of chemicals and I hated using it.
@@yesterdayfarm5273 unfortunately. Lolololol. Nowadays probably the most used word in the dictionary. I was a professional horseshoer for 35 years and I used something similar. I just needed something to keep the flies of for about 30 minutes. Used store bough fly spray for years. Being young and dumb I didn’t think about the poisons being absorbed through my skin from touching the horse after being sprayed.
@@JohnDavis-yz9nq "unfortunately": 😁
And yeah, some of those store-bought sprays are pretty nasty. DEET is probably one of the 'better' chemicals, as far as toxicity is concerned. My wife used to buy an expensive horse-fly spray that worked pretty well, but boy: it was NOT NICE if you happened to breath some of it in. 😬
And the path from horse --> human via skin for farriers/horseshoers must be pretty brutal...I can only imagine! 😧
@@yesterdayfarm5273 yeh my horseshoeing was in the days before computers. In that time and era nobody thought about making a natural fly spray. It was impossible to shoe a horse without fly spray. I can remember have a front foot between my legs and here comes that tail slapping me in the face and stinging my eyes. Every shoer including myself puts the horse nails in their mouth. Having fly spray on the hands and touching the nails that is not a good deal. I sure don’t miss those days. I think in my next life I will be a truck driver or pump gas at a service station.
What is the benefit of the Neem Oil? Could it be substituted with Coconut Oil?
Neem oil is used as an insect repellent (ticks, mosquitos, fleas, etc.). Coconut Oil might also have some of these properties, but I don't think quite as effective. Worth a try though?
Hi, I'm trying to convert the measurements to ml as I'm in the Uk, using a conversion table it says that 32oz of aloe juice = 946ml although in the comments you say you use a gallon which is 3.7 litres, very confused, please help
Hello.
The video is last year's recipe, where I used 32 fl oz (about one litre) of Aloe juice per 5 gallon batch. For this year's batch I used more Aloe juice, because it's so cheap here (in the U.S.). It's only U$6.44 per gallon here. I'd say use as much Aloe juice as you reasonably can afford. Aloe juice doesn't really add to the mixture's repellency, but is added for its skin healing and soothing properties.
@@yesterdayfarm5273 Hi, thank you so much for your speedy reply and that clears things up for me, I shall take your advice and use as much aloe as possible, again many thanks, I will get the ingredients ordered :)
Do I need the neem oil if I don't need it for ticks? I only need it for the flies 😄
Also, I found a soap which contains citronella, do you think I should use that soap and use it as a 1 in 2 item so I could cut out the citronella oil? Or should I just stick with a normal soap and add a separate citronella oil?
Good questions!
I think you can forego the neem oil. It does help with flies, but I use it mainly for ticks.
The soap though: I doubt it actually has enough citronella in it to have any real affect on flies...it's probably more to make it smell nice. So, my recommendation: yeah, leave the neem oil out, but keep the citronella as in the recipe.
Good luck!!! 👍
I got few question.
Why do you ad dish washing liquid?
Does it work on blood sucking insect like mosqiutoes and other?
Would it still work if i dont use mineral oil? It is hard to get it here.
1) The dishwashing liquid is to help emulsify the various ingredients and to act as a surfactant.
2) This spray works against mosquitos, yes. However, if your MAIN concern is mosquitos, you may find that the eucalyptus oil used in this recipe should be changed from "Eucalyptus globulus" to "Corymbia citriodora" or Eucalyptus citriodora (lemon eucalyptus). Lemon Eucalyptus oil (Eucalyptus citriodora) is likely better at repelling mosquitos than Eucalyptus globulus oil, and I might change to Eucalyptus citriodora oil myself in future batches.
3) You don't need mineral oil. If you forego the mineral oil, you can also reduce the amount of dishwashing liquid. By the way, an alternative to pure mineral oil is AVON SKIN SO SOFT, but that won't be cheap.
What brand of eucalyptus, neem,and citronella oils are you using I am having a hard time finding them at a decent price
In the US I get GreenHealth (by WFmed.com)for most oils, and Pure Neem by cocojojo.com, but there should be others too. Just make sure they're 100% pure.
What kind of nozzle do you have?
Do you have the part number for that bottle and the nozzle?
Thanks for the comment. Yeah, that spray bottle at the end of the video is AWESOME and the only one really that works 100%. *Unfortunately* that spray bottle isn't available in the U.S......it's a Japanese made DIA Model No.3530. The issue with other plastic spray bottles I tried is that they start deforming/melting after a while; I presume because of the combination of essential oils, maybe?
Maybe since it's some sort of insecticide you should use a ZEP Industrial Pro Spray Bottle?
Not all spray bottles will handle this concoction --> good observation!
I use Japanese-made Dia Spray EXCELLENT spray bottles by FURUPLA; they are MUCH better than the ZEP Pro ones.
There is also Chemical Guys Acc_130 Professional Chemical Resistant Heavy Duty Bottle and Sprayer, 32 oz
@@specterman2000
Nice one.
Still though ---> if you ever get hold of one of the "FURUPLA Dia EXCELLENT" spray bottles, you will immediately recognize the inferiority of almost all the ones that are available in the USA. Quite sad actually.
There is a company that sells them in the USA, but they are special order I think, and of course not cheap. I bought my most recent batch from the Japanese AMAZON site.
us.misumi-ec.com/vona2/detail/223000860764/
www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/gp/product/B001HPEIWI
@@yesterdayfarm5273 Well I've taken your advice and just bought my own Furu Pura Dis Spray bottle!👍
Where do you get those sprayers
Unfortunately those DIA SPRAYERS are almost impossible to find outside of Japan and S. Korea! :(
Such a shame, as they are excellent....I've been using mine for years!
How long does the concoction last without a preservative?
Excellent question! 👍
The 100% Aloe juice used in this recipe is actually 99.8% pure, and contains Citric Acid & Sodium Benzoate as preservatives. I've never had issues keeping this concoction for a whole season, probably because of this. I did make sure I stored it in a cool, dark area of the barn though, just in case.
Also: I think the vinegar and the oils help in preserving it, so I think it doesn't tend to spoil.
@@yesterdayfarm5273 thank you for your reply. I am excited
any alternate to Aleo juice
Just water is fine. It won't last as long though, so make sure you store in a cool place and use it up relatively fast. (The aloe juice i show in the video has some preservatives in it).
The neem oil I got is crazy thick and dark it's having some trouble emulsifying and it's clumping up in little blobs. Also a general layer of oil at the top. Could be extra alkaloids I think if it's a full spectrum mix
Wow, that Neem Oil you have must have its seed kernels soaked for quite a long time! The Neem Oil I use is a nice golden yellow/brown.
Yes, there is a layer of oil on the top. I usually just shake the fly-spray-bottle before use. If the oil layer is bothersome, more dish-washing liquid and/or less mineral oil could be used. I just made two more 5 gallon batches and used MUCH more Aloe Juice this time (1 gallon Aloe Juice per 5 gallon pale).
Is it aloe juice that you drink or the aloe for skin please?
It's the one you can drink (99.8% pure) :www.walmart.com/ip/Fruit-of-the-Earth-Original-Aloe-Vera-Drink-128-Fl-Oz/10314798
@@yesterdayfarm5273 Thank you
@@yesterdayfarm5273 £26 in the UK, crazy price difference
@@annabelstephenson4715 @Annabel Stephenson Oh WOW! 😲 That IS a huge difference, indeed! 😢
The recipe for 5 gallons (~20 litres) calls for 32 fl oz aloe juice, so maybe you can 'get away' with only buying a litre? Still not cheap though, I'm sure! The Aloe Juice is so inexpensive here, that I used a whole gallon per 5 gallon spray when I made my yearly batch the other day.
Good luck...
Yes crazy price difference.
Thank you for your help
Were you a Mixologist at one point?
Hahaha, no, but thanks! :)
I know nothing about farming. What is this useful for?
We use this spray on our horses as a fly repellent. Flies can be quite bothersome to farm animals and pets in Summer.
If you buy fly spray in the store it can be VERY expensive ($20+ per spray bottle!), so many make their own fly spray by mixing various ingredients together.
The store-bought versions work well, but they often contain nasty chemicals. 'Do-it-yourselfers' try and find more natural mixtures that work without breaking the bank! :)
Yesterday Farm ohh ok thanks for the info
Will this work if spray on areas on my porch and house. No horses here but front and backyard are full of horse flies. Use the trappers and looking for other solutions. :(
@@richardolague4502 That's a good question! I think the problem might be, what would you spray it on? You couldn't just spray it "around" as it would simply blow away and be ineffective pretty much immediately. Maybe spray it on a rag or cloth, so it could keep 'smelling" longer?
For normal house flies we use those plastic pouches that you fill up with water; they stink (has rotten eggs as an ingredient) but catch a LOT of flies. Just keep in mind that you should place these AWAY from the porch a bit, as the flies will gravitate towards these traps.
Good luck!