🌿 The traditional method:
- Remove the animals. Use an 80–100 g bundle of dried flowering lavender (not just leaves—the flowers contain the highest concentration of essential oils).
- Burn it at the entrance of the kennel or under the shelter of a stable. Let the smoke saturate the space for 45 minutes.
- Air out for 30 minutes before bringing the animals back.
- Frequency: once a month during the active season (May to September).
Lavender had a second role that farmers understood without formally describing it: burned linalool made bedding fibers less attractive for flea egg-laying. It had a residual effect of 8 to 12 days on fresh straw—not sterilization, but a partial interruption of the reproductive cycle.
🌱 Where Alpine farmers used dried juniper for flies, they reserved lavender for bedding parasites. Each plant had its own spectrum. It wasn’t magic—it was empirical specialization.
The gentlest smoke of the garrigue was also the most effective against what hid in the straw.
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