Thirty-seven years ago I was on a call to a well-known boarding stable. I can’t remember why I was there, but I do remember that it was a hot August day. I was bending over, working on a horse’s right forefoot. The temperature was over 100o. It was noon hour.

I suddenly realized that there were no flies present. I thought, “They must be using a very effective insecticide on the premises.” So, when I finished my task with the horse, I went over to the office and asked the stable manager what they were using for fly control.

“Fly Predators” she said. “Aren’t the doing a great job?”

I had heard about Spalding’s Fly Predators. I had, with some skepticism, seen their ads. In fact, one of my practice partners, Dr. Larry Dresher, had told me that he was using them with satisfactory results, but it took that call on a hot mid-summer day, to convert me.

I thought, “Well, one reason this place is getting such dramatic results is that it is isolated. There are no other manure producing facilities for a long distance in any direction. Maybe that’s why they are getting such good results.”

Then I thought, “But my place is like that. No other animal farms for a long ways in any direction. Maybe I’ll get similar results.”

I called Spalding Labs the next day and we have been a regular customer ever since. Now, thirty-seven years later, there are neighboring horses, goats, and cattle, but I am still getting good results.

I bought my 5-acre place from a former client. It is in a canyon with what we call a “micro climate” cut off from the marine air layer by the surrounding mountains, it has a desert climate; colder in winter and hotter in summer than our closest town which is on a broad plain, and a lower altitude. That area is flea heaven. My veterinary hospital was there.

Where I now live, a few miles away, the humidity is so low that we have never experienced fleas. But, because of the heat, flies flourish.

I remember horses that my former client had. In summer they were covered with flies, and he did nothing for them. So, when I bought this place, there were millions of flies.

I persuaded my neighbors who owned animals to go on the Fly Predator program so that, even when there were cattle 20 yards from my house, we had a minimal fly problem.

What I like best about using Fly Predators is that it provides an environmentally safe method of fly control. My property drains into beautiful Lake Sherwood and I know that no insecticide chemicals are going into the lake.

I do use fly repellants on my horses and mules daily in fly season because the predators are effective against the Stable Fly and the House Fly which are manure breeding, but not against mosquitoes, deer flies, or the big Horse Flies. So, with repellants on the equines, and Fly Predators on the manure, I have good insect pest control.