Got Bots?

With the cool autumn weather comes new autumn pests, namely bots.  Bots are the equine representatives of a specialized family of flies that of spend the cold winter months within the stomach of horses.  


How do they get there you ask?  Adult female bot flies glue their eggs to the hair shafts of specific body parts of the horse. The eggs on the hair coat are stimulated to hatch by a combination of warmth, moisture, and carbon dioxide. All of these are supplied whenever a horse nuzzles its lower legs or grooms the coat of another horse during which the larvae attach themselves to the lips or tongue of the horse.  


After molting into the second larval phase, the bots are swallowed, and they spend the winter in the horse's stomach.  


Come spring, the bots detach themselves from their equine host, and enter their new environment via the horse's manure.


So how do you get rid of bots?


There are several methods to reduce or eliminate bots on or in your horse.  The first and most labor intensive method is to try and remove the eggs from the coat.  You can do this by using fine combs, razors, rough bot-removal blocks, sandpaper, or by scrubbing with warm water or coating the eggs with petroleum jelly.


The second method is to use wormer.  Ivermectin and moxidectin are the only two ingredients that remove larval bots from the stomach effectively, and should be administered after the first hard frost of the season.  This is best time because the horse will not ingest any more bots that late in the season, so the wormer will likely remove all of them.


Have any other effective bot removal techniques?  We'd love to hear about them; feel free to post a comment here or on our Facebook page.