vegetable oil on back rub??

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j&lfarms said:
About to put out a backrub and after looking at the price of diesel, mineral oil, and crude oil I was wondering if you mixed the vegetable oil with a little water to thin it out and the fly killer if it would work just as well as the other stuff. I can buy 5 gallons of vegetable oil cheaper than the other stuff.
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I've been using vegetable oil for fly control on my cattle for a couple years now. I just put it in a sprayer and walk around my herd spraying their back/head/side/legs. It works very well. Spraying while they're feeding at a trough works best. The flies fall off on contact and get stomped as the cattle feed. The thought of using vehicle fuel and oil just doesn't sound good to me. If pour on is absorbed through the skin and used throughout the body, imagine what that stuff is doing. Yikes. Just my opinion, to each their own.
 
Well, most people that use vegetable oil in a back rub, mix some kind of pesticide with it. The objective is to kill the insects as well as warding them off. Veg oil is one of the recommended carrier oils on the instructions that come with the back rubs. They sometimes call it 'crop oil' tho, along with an option to use mineral oil, which is almost always a by-product of crude oil refining..
I don't know how anyone could afford to use veg oil tho. Retail, the cheap stuff is about $9/gallon.
 
greybeard said:
Well, most people that use vegetable oil in a back rub, mix some kind of pesticide with it. The objective is to kill the insects as well as warding them off. Veg oil is one of the recommended carrier oils on the instructions that come with the back rubs. They sometimes call it 'crop oil' tho, along with an option to use mineral oil, which is almost always a by-product of crude oil refining..
I don't know how anyone could afford to use veg oil tho. Retail, the cheap stuff is about $9/gallon.
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I guess that's true for ranchers that don't check their cattle as often. If they're just continuously grazing 1 paddock and sitting in their own feces everyday then yes, you need pesticide. If you're someone that moves them to new paddocks regularly then a simple mist and move will work. The flies can't fly with the oil that coats them and they get left behind and if they do find the cows then they are deterred from landing on them. Plus spraying hit all parts of the cow (legs/sides) besides just the head and back. And if you count up the costs in pesticide + diesel fuel etc, it's probably not too far off. All the wasted oils that evaporate on the rub need to be counted as well, very little gets wasted when spraying directly on the cow from a couple feet away. Now of course, fly control is a multi-faceted problem and takes multiple angles of attack to control totally. There's not a 1 fix answer to fly control. But again, to each their own. Whatever works for your situation is great, this is what works for me.
 
Resurrected 10 year old thread.
@Graham Cattle - you are new on here - welcome! Please go to the top of the page and click on your name and ADD your LOCATION.
Many locations have pests/flys more than it sounds like you have. Simply moving cattle daily (most of us use rotational grazing) does not eliminate flys.
When I moved to NY from Kansas and people would complain about the flys - I would say "you don't have a clue what a problem FLYS can be".
 
Graham Cattle said:
I've been using vegetable oil for fly control on my cattle for a couple years now. I just put it in a sprayer and walk around my herd spraying their back/head/side/legs. It works very well. Spraying while they're feeding at a trough works best. The flies fall off on contact and get stomped as the cattle feed. The thought of using vehicle fuel and oil just doesn't sound good to me. If pour on is absorbed through the skin and used throughout the body, imagine what that stuff is doing. Yikes. Just my opinion, to each their own.
Click to expand...
If you can walk around and spray them why wouldn't you just mix it with water?
 
Graham Cattle said:
I guess that's true for ranchers that don't check their cattle as often. If they're just continuously grazing 1 paddock and sitting in their own feces everyday then yes, you need pesticide. If you're someone that moves them to new paddocks regularly then a simple mist and move will work. The flies can't fly with the oil that coats them and they get left behind and if they do find the cows then they are deterred from landing on them. Plus spraying hit all parts of the cow (legs/sides) besides just the head and back. And if you count up the costs in pesticide + diesel fuel etc, it's probably not too far off. All the wasted oils that evaporate on the rub need to be counted as well, very little gets wasted when spraying directly on the cow from a couple feet away. Now of course, fly control is a multi-faceted problem and takes multiple angles of attack to control totally. There's not a 1 fix answer to fly control. But again, to each their own. Whatever works for your situation is great, this is what works for me.
Click to expand...
Why do you think cattle that aren't in a rotational grazing situation are just sitting around in their own feces?
 

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