One of the side effects they mention on the feed through fly
control is “extreme startle response”. When I used the feed
through fly control my gelding became so spooky it took most of the fun out of
riding and even became an issue to work around him on the ground. My
trainer read about the lawsuit regarding equitrol and noticed the side effect
and mentioned it to me. We took the gelding off the feed through fly
control and he returned to his normal, energetic but fun to ride, self.
My vet also questioned the use of organophosphates in horses working as hard as
endurance horses and was concerned about long term use when they are
periodically dehydrated by their work.
We also had problems with the horses just eating the whole
rayban block in one continuous gorging. It has lots of molasses or some
kind of sugar binding it together and they just ate it like candy.
We use fly predators now and honestly have better fly
control than we did with equitrol.
