10/14/2026
🐴💚 Weird but True Horse Fact Wednesday: Seeing a bunch of little spots on your horses in the fall? They aren't dandruff, they are bot fly larvae. 🐴💚
Bot flies are fuzzy, bee-lookalike flies that can’t even eat as adults. They have no functional mouthparts, so their entire adult life is basically one mission: make sure their kids get a free ride on a horse.
The horse bot fly glues tiny yellow eggs (they look like little grains of sand) onto a horse’s legs and shoulders. When the horse licks or nibbles itself, the warmth and moisture trigger the eggs to hatch right on the spot. The larvae wriggle into the mouth, burrow into the tongue and gums for a few weeks, then settle into the horse’s stomach lining, where they hang on for 8 to 10 months. In the spring, they let go, ride out in the manure, pupate in the soil, and emerge as flies to start the whole cycle over again.
So how do we prevent this:
1. In the photo below, you can see the removal process of these sticky little eggs using a bot knife. Using the blade you can wiggle loose the eggs and remove them from the hair.
2. Deworming horses after the first frost - this kills off any larvae in the stomach and by waiting until first frost it prevents further infestation.
Our volunteers at FHHR have ever changing jobs based on the seasons but not all are quite this glamorous!
