THE ESSENTIAL HORSE

As horse owners, we all want to protect our horses from flies, mosquitoes and other winged pests that are not only annoying but which can also spread serious diseases. Most of us use fly sprays as a big part of our efforts, but many of us are frustrated with the fact that those sprays rarely work as well as they claim, and some don’t seem to do much at all. But when you have a horse with insect bite sensitivity (IBH), commonly called “sweet itch”, that frustration can reach epic proportions, as flying bugs become a whole new level of problematic. Horses affected with IBH experience agonizing itching that leads them to rub themselves against any available surface, often causing hair loss, terrible sores and sometimes even permanent damage to their skin and hair. The culprit behind most cases of IBH are the over 1000 species of culicoides gnats, which are widely distributed over much of the planet.

My beautiful Fell Pony, Zephyr, suffers from IBH,  and this year’s season got off to a particularly bad start. Zephyr’s IBH was not only making him miserable, but he was rubbing off his once gorgeous mane and tail and starting to develop sores on his neck, tail and rump. I was truly desperate to help him, as I was aware of how bad things can get for affected horses, and thus began my latest trip down the sweet itch product rabbit hole.

I eventually lost count of the various fly sprays, lotions, medications, salves, creams, sheets, supplements, powders and potions I tried to combat the flying hoards. It didn’t seem to matter what the product promised: none of them provided any truly effective solution for my poor, itchy pony. Fly sheets specifically designed to keep out gnats definitely work for some horses, but in this environment, their tight weave made Zephyr too hot, and even if they didn’t, they simply couldn’t hold up to being rubbed and snagged on the dozens of pines and junipers in the pony paddock. We also had no way to keep him indoors during the worst bug hours of dusk and dawn, as experts often recommend, since we don’t have stalls in our barn, Plus, having been bitten by those nasty little gnats many times during the day myself, I knew that stalling wouldn’t solve the problem anyway.

Thus, by the process of elimination, fly sprays were my first line of defense. I tried so many, from natural ingredient sprays to heavy-duty chemical ones that you should probably wear a hazmat suit to apply, but found that even the sprays that were supposed to work for “up to 14 days” did nothing after a few hours, and some didn’t seem to repel gnats at all. One much-lauded natural ingredient spray actually made things much worse, seeming to cause a reaction itself that made it look like Zephyr’s skin had been burned. Another product caused his jet black hair to turn bright red!

Those items were put on the no-go list, but to give Zephyr even moderate relief from the bugs, I found myself practically drowning the little guy in a rotating array of fly sprays four times a day, and also applying topical medications like cortisone and Benadryl mixed in with an itch-soothing skin cream by Cera Ve. In addition, I gave him a bath with mild, skin-soothing Coat Defense shampoo once a week to get the buildup of products off him, then we would start all over again.

Under this elaborate, pain-in-the-hiney regimen, the rubbing lessened, but did not stop altogether. Surely, I thought, there had to be SOMETHING out there that would actually work, something to keep all manner of flying insects off my horse, something I hadn’t tried yet. If there was, I was going to move heaven and earth to find it.

Digging around on the internet, I found some information about an ingredient called picaridin that is now being used in mosquito repellants for people, and which is not only said to be as effective as DEET, but is also much safer. I wondered if this picaridin stuff repelled other flying biters as well, and with more research, I found that it does. Hmm. Could there be a fly spray for horses out there that contained picaridin, and if so, would it actually be any better than the ones currently cluttering up my barn? Then something popped up on my screen: a fly spray called Zone Protects Horse & Rider, which has a unique formula made with picaridin and vanillin, both of which are supposed to repel insects. Sounded interesting, but I’d never heard of this spray, and having already spent a small fortune on products that didn’t help, I was hesitant to throw more money down the drain.

I decided to ask about Zone Protects in the wonderful Sweet Itch Support group I belong to on Facebook. The group has over 17,000 members, all dealing with horses that really need protection from flying insects, so I figured they were the most likely folks to give me the skinny on this spray. Sure enough, one member replied to my query, saying,  “Love it. I’m in Florida. I spray them every night and it works great for nighttime bugs. Had three horses that would scratch to blood. One I kept covered but it was too much in the heat. No one needs to be covered now. I’m actually surprised this spray hasn’t caught on with more people yet.” That sounded really promising, as I imagined that the bugs in Florida had to be even worse than what I was dealing with in northern Nevada, so with a mix of hope and skepticism, I ordered a bottle.

I also got in touch with Brian Baer, the CEO of Zone Protects, to ask him about the product. Turns out that Brian is a pretty interesting guy, a chemical engineer by trade who gave up a lucrative position with BP to create a line of products designed to help people and their animals. I asked him a slew of questions, especially wanting to know exactly how the ingredients in Zone Protects Horse & Rider work to protect against biting insects. As he explained, “Picaridin works by masking the horse’s hide (and the human’s skin), which is different from traditional fly repellents or insecticides.

“For instance, with a product such as permethrin, the biting fly has to land on the horse and bite the horse before it dies. This does nothing to prevent the pain and suffering caused by the bite, so the damage is already done. Picaridin effectively makes the horse and rider ‘invisible’, so the mosquitoes, flies, gnats, etc. don’t sense the food source and will not even land. And vanilla extract has long been used as a natural insect repellent, so Zone Protects has infused vanillin (the chemical component in vanilla extract) with the picaridin. The result is an increase in the overall repellency of the product and the fresh, light scent. Win-win! The use of vanillin with any other type of repellent or formula for the purposes of insect repellency is patent-pending, so no other product on the market can claim this benefit.”

When I told him what the lady in Florida had said about what a difference the spray was making for her horses, Brian replied, “We love to hear stories like that, and I must say that the feedback from horse owners has been absolutely fantastic. Our goal truly is to help people and their animals, so the fact that this is happening is exactly what we hoped for.”

That all sounded wonderful, but would it work for MY pony? My bottle arrived and I practically ran out to the barn to try it. I brushed Zephyr off, trying not to be too saddened by the copious damage to his mane that had already occurred, then applied the Zone Protects spray. I immediately noted the very mild, vanilla-like scent of the product — so much nicer than the strong, sometimes downright unpleasant smells of the other things I had been using. Zephyr also seemed to like it, as there was no tail-swishing, sneezing, moving away or other signs of any negative reaction. I could only hope, at that moment, that the bugs wouldn’t like it, so off I went to bed, anxious to see what the spray would accomplish overnight, as most mornings it was clear that Zephyr had been itchy and rubbing by the time I went out for the morning feed.

The next morning, I was almost afraid to look. But when I got to the barn, there was Zephyr, with no signs at all of any fresh rubbing! I could still smell just a bit of the vanilla scent of the spray, and Zephyr was not swishing at any bugs, so the Zone Protects was clearly still working — hallelujah! I wondered if that was just a fluke, but thank goodness, it wasn’t. So far, I’ve watched a number of different species of flying insects come around Zephyr and then leave, having not landed. These have ranged to a giant and very confused-looking horse fly, who seemed to have spotted Zephyr from a distance but then couldn’t “find” him once he got close, to a swarm of tiny gnats that went after me but left my pony alone.

Having used the spray now for several weeks, I can confidently state that Zone Protects Horse & Rider is an absolute game-changer, by far the best fly spray I’ve ever tried. I do apply it at least twice a day, sometimes doing a third little “top up” just before dusk on particularly buggy days. That’s probably overkill and would definitely not be necessary for normal horses, but as it takes so little to trigger itchiness in Zephyr and we are finally making progress, I would rather err on the side of caution. I’m even starting to see some new growth in Zephyr’s mane, though it will take years to undo the damage that happened before I discovered this godsend of a product.

The only somewhat negative comment I can make about the Zone Protects spray is that it does leave a residue on the horse’s coat, but as I have yet to find a fly spray that doesn’t, that is certainly not a big deal. In fact, I have found that because the product is not oil-based, it actually rinses off well with just water, making it easy to get your horse really clean when it counts, which is not the case with many other sprays. Of course, this means that if your horse gets rained on heavily or works up a real sweat, you will need to reapply the spray, but as a little seems to go a long way, you will still likely be ahead of the game.

So, if you have a horse you want to protect from flies, whether they have sweet itch or not, I wholeheartedly recommend Zone Protects Horse & Rider. And as a bonus, you can safely spray it on your hands to apply to your horse’s face without worrying about dangerous chemicals getting on your skin, and even use it on yourself to keep the bugs from bugging you! If you want to check it out, go to: www.zoneprotects.com, and be sure to use the discount code HORSELOVE to get 20% off.  And no, I don’t work for them — I’m just an incredibly grateful horse owner who wants to help as many other horses get the kind of relief my boy has found. I sincerely hope it works for you as well as it has for me!