# spiders in the barn



## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

So, the other day I decided that the spiders all over the barn were getting a little ridiculous. I swept a lot of them down but many remained as it's a little sticky. Plus, by the time I got home I realized that I had many spider bites on me. I must have knocked down some babies. Anyone have any great ideas on how to keep the populations down with out getting them all over you?


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## Horseychick87 (Feb 5, 2014)

You can use a shop-vac and suck them up, or wear long sleeves and try to close up any openings that they could crawl into by using bands or tape to hold the fabric close to your skin (kind of like bee keepers do.)

Personally I'd go with a long hose and a shop-vac.

Also I've yet to find a way to keep the spider population down other than letting lizards live in the barn, but where there are lizards there are likely other larger reptiles, like snakes that prey on the lizards so....


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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

Ahhhhhh, spiders in the barn....the bane of my life. I HATE spiders!!!!

I have what I call hobo spiders that show up in my barn (and nowhere else) every spring and stay till our first freeze. They make webs everywhere. I have a long tree branch that I wave in front of me when entering the barn every morning to knock them down, because I got tired of doing faceplants in their webs :0. 

I spray the more annoying ones with my horse fly spray. It's a pain to have to de-spider my riding mower every time I use it. And the darn things multiple faster than rabbits!! Can't use insecticides for obvious reasons. 

I recently read that walnuts are a natural deterrent to spiders, but walnuts are toxic to horses. I guess I'm stuck with them.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## JCnGrace (Apr 28, 2013)

Spiders catch flies in their webs and then eat them. I hate flies so I like spiders. You all can feel free to dump them at my barn.


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

Better living through chemistry?


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## RedHorseRidge (Nov 3, 2012)

There are lots of essential oils (citrus, peppermint, citronella, tea tree, and so on) they hate (that are safe for horses)... but you have to spray every week, making this unrealistic for large areas. But you can easily do this to discourage them from building webs in doorways.

We only take down the dusty webs (as those are not active). They eat so many insects (including flies and mosquitos) we don't mind having them around, provided they stay "hidden" (meaning no webs in my face!)


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## Textan49 (Feb 13, 2015)

JCnGrace said:


> Spiders catch flies in their webs and then eat them. I hate flies so I like spiders. You all can feel free to dump them at my barn.


 I have a few resident spiders in my house for the same reason, so the ones in the barn don't bother me.


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

I don't mind a few spiders but these guys are ridiculous. They're everywhere!! At night they all start dropping down and you have to dodge around them. I don't necessarily want to kill them, but I would appreciate if they made their homes in places where I don't have to walk. I will try the essential oils, that sounds like a good way to go.


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## Hadassah (Nov 1, 2015)

Well, scorpions eat spiders as do wasps if you want to go the natural method. Maybe a little less creepy would be chickens or guineas.


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## Jan1975 (Sep 7, 2015)

LoriF said:


> I don't mind a few spiders but these guys are ridiculous. They're everywhere!! At night they all start dropping down and you have to dodge around them.


That sounds like a horror movie to me!!


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## LoriF (Apr 3, 2015)

Hadassah said:


> Well, scorpions eat spiders as do wasps if you want to go the natural method. Maybe a little less creepy would be chickens or guineas.


What, are you kidding me? I'll take the spiders over scorpions and wasps, thank you. There are chickens at the barn. They like to roost on one particular wall. And, guess what? No spiders there. They can't get to all of them though


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## RedHorseRidge (Nov 3, 2012)

We had guineas (about 70 of them) roaming free on the farm for years... best bug control ever! But they didn't touch the spiders in the basement of the barn because they only used the top floor. When we moved in, there were so many yellow jacket nests everywhere we had to be careful where we tied up the horses outside... guineas were so good that we barely got anything from our garden (they also eat bees, and without bees and other pollinators, not much will produce).

Sure miss them though. We were wiped out by a trio of adolescent raccoons that would kill them as they roosted in the barn (just kill them and leave their bodies -- who says man is the only animal that kills for sport!)... along with a new family of red tail hawks. Our chickens now have a nice big "chicken palace" in which to live...which, I might add, is full of spiders.


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## Whinnie (Aug 9, 2015)

If you use the vacuum, put a flea collar in the canister. It will kill the spiders or any other insect. When I like in East Texas years ago, we had a terrible tick problem started outing pieces of flea collar in my upright vacuum bag. Works on fleas and flea eggs too.


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## Corporal (Jul 29, 2010)

Just one little bit of advice vis a vis the shop vac. Clean it completely out before you sweep up the spiders, or else you will be covered with dust!! Also, you can do like I do fighting fleas (from the dogs and cats) in the house, where I buy and put the cheapest flea collar in a new sweeper bag to kill any fleas and eggs that I sweep up.
You can try spraying a paper towel with spider insecticide and put it inside of the canister, too.
Hope this helps! I feel for you. We wait until after the climate freezes up north to kill spiders and wasps.
Definitely use a shop vac. My regular sweeper, an Electrolux, will bust if I either sweep up powder, so no powder carpet cleaners, OR water. Shop vacs are made for both.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> Meet my best friend, Webster:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Whinnie (Aug 9, 2015)

Whinnie said:


> If you use the vacuum, put a flea collar in the canister. It will kill the spiders or any other insect. When I like in East Texas years ago, we had a terrible tick problem started outing pieces of flea collar in my upright vacuum bag. Works on fleas and flea eggs too.


 Jeeze, how did anyone figure out what I was trying to say? Drat my keyboard and sausage fingers!

I LIVED in East Texas and I started PUTTING pieces of flea collar in my vacuum.


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## Corporal (Jul 29, 2010)

Even the cheapest flea collars will kill fleas in a small space, like the sweeper bag, but even they have gone up in price, so I've cut them into smaller pieces to use, too.


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