BUFFALO FLY- natural recipe

Brandy has been suffering from a buffalo fly infestation since her last holiday with the beef-cattle up the road. Her eyes were crusty and bloody. I had to use antibiotics from the vet.

For the treatment of the actual fly I ordered some organic stuff off the web. It was essentially a canola oil base with essential oils mixed in, but did not list which oils on the bottle. It was expensive at $29 per litre, plus another nine postage. One application is around 500mls. I have found I need to reapply it about every 4-7 days. So, I decided to have a crack at making my own.

We had a dinner party a few nights later and passed the bottle of organic buffalo fly stuff around the table. I got everyone to have a sniff and write down what they thought was in it- one of our guests was a winemaker- so he was very helpful.

Here is the list we came up with: eucyliptus, pine, orange, lavender and lemon myrtle.

So, I made my own concoction and added some neem oil for good measure. It works just as well as the bought stuff for just a fraction of the price. Essentially, it is a deodorant and can be used on backscratchers or just sprayed directly on- this is how I do it.

If it rains it needs to be reapplied. Otherwise just use when you notice more than 100 buffalo flies on your cow.