Fly control with Orange oil & DE

[tgoodwin]

Has anyone tried orange oil in the typical cattle rub or DE in some sort of duster bag for fly control? I have 60 partly wooded acres with 4 longhorn cows. Flies are bad in the warm periods.

Chickens would only feed the coyotes and bobcats as I do not live on the property and only check on the livestock twice a week.

[Robert D Bard]

There are bags that you can put DE in and then let the cattle rub them. Just ask your feed store.
I feed DE to our cows almost everyday and flies almost never bother them. This comes from the idea of building their general immunity by adding trace minerals to their diet. You can put DE in a mineral feeder. I would suggest you mix in humates, kelp, and redmond conditioner (contains silica and trace minerals w/o NaCl) and a block of Redmond salt (it has about 72 trace minerals). This mixture works well and they eat what they want - cattle know what they need when it is presented to them - depending on the time of the year.
I have never tried to use orange oil with the cattle - I use it for other purposes - ants mostly.
I has red ants in the office and I put aspartame - equal - behind the cabinents and drawers and they left the building. I also put splenda in a ant mound (not fire ants) and it drove them nuts - they started moving at twice their normal speed. Aspartame and splenda were insecticides before they became sweeteners - doen't this make you feel good about diet drinks and the other 6000 + products that they are in at the grocery store food isles?
Robert D Bard