No chemicals, no harsh toxins, doesn't wash off, can withstand rain, not affected by sweat, safe to use on pregnant mare, are environmentally friendly, lasts approximately 4 months ... and repels flies!! What a super invention! :)
'Shoo! Tags' is a credit card sized plastic card with an electo-magnetic strip embedded in it. They use the horses existing energy field and add a few frequencies that the manufacturers say insects do not like. It causes all the nasty, little, irritating flies and mosquitoes to become disorientated and avoid the electo-magnetic source altogether around the horse. No energy is taken away from the horse, it has no known side effects and it does not interfere with radio frequencies, radio collars, electrical devices or microchips.
I like to leave horses unrugged during the summer so they can groom each other, have a good roll and a scratch and live as naturally as possible. This could help horses previously kept rugged during the summer to live out full time and engage in normal horse behaviour which may have been somewhat hampered by rugs, fly spray and fly mask before. We all know that a horse who is happy mentally is healthier and will perform so much better in the long run! I also like the advantage that you could even wear this at a show and you'll have no flies hampering your performance...although this also means no excuses for not doing as well as you should! :)
The tags themselves last approximately 4 months and usually 'die' from wear and tear to the magnetic strip. The tags are made with recycled, bio-degradable materials and they use soy based inks. Tags that are used but not damaged can even be returned and they will re-encode them and forward them to horse rescues and damaged tags can be recycled.
I really like the idea behind these especially that they last 24 hours so no need to worry about sprays wearing off after an hour or so (which I found with most sprays!). As it is non toxic and repels rather then kills the flies it doesn't upset or cause havoc with the ecosystem. :) The cards are designed to be effective against horse flies, mosquitoes and the culicoides midge (horses with sweet itch are allergic to the bites of the culicoides midge, so perhaps this could give sweet itch sufferers a much needed break from being showered in creams and sprays as well as rugs!).
The only downside to Shoo! Tags is that a zap from an electric fence can make them prematurely 'die'. I tend to just flick on and off our electric fencing when the horses get a bit full of themselves or bold and it usually only takes leaving it on over night to get them back behaving themselves and respecting the electric fence, so perhaps for that night I could just use fly spray? If you have post and rail or natural hedging then this would be ideal!
I think I'm going to order some of these and to test them out for myself...they sound amazing and a completely new innovation in the battle against flies. So here's hoping they are as good in real life as they are on paper....I'll let you know how I get on! :)
Shoo! Tags can be bought directly from the manufacturers website ( ~ €50 excl P&P) or from amazon.com (~ €18 excl P&P) as well as many other American sites. I couldn't find any retailers selling it in the UK or Ireland ... but it's I hope only a matter of time before they do! Amazing value and I think it could even work out cheaper then the most expensive of fly sprays!
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