Dirty Horse Jobs No One Wants To Do!
Oct 26 2010
Today, let’s talk about all of those dirty horse jobs no one really wants to do. They don’t necessarily have to be dirty in the filth sense, but also just tasks you really, really, really hate to do. Here is my top 5 list of things I’d rather not be faced with (but of course will do when I have to – or at least pay someone else to do!)
1. Removing burrs. UGH! This is just a tedious, time consuming and frustrating job no matter what you put in the tail. I’ve tried baby oil, show sheen and WD-40. But if you adopt or rescue a horse like this, and you want to save the mane and tail, there’s no way out other than hours of painstaking picking.
2. Sheath cleaning. Many horses do not want any part of your efforts to polish their private parts, but if you don’t, an expensive vet bill may result and – let’s be real – if you don’t, some horses really do stink. Some horses seem to accumulate the grossest gunk there on a regular basis. I highly recommend just hiring someone for this dirty job – your vet can do it but there are also professional sheath cleaning services out there!
3. Barbed wire removal. We just brought this up. The only way to do it even reasonably safely is with a couple layers of clothing on, preferably something hard to get through like Carhart, and a double layer of work gloves. Barbed wire will grab you and rip a very nasty strip in any part of your flesh it comes into contact with. As you are pulling it off, it curls and whips in hard-to-predict ways and I’ve always secretly feared I will lose an eye. Still, it has to be done unless you want the even more painful experience of finding your horse crippled for life or dead in the field after getting caught in it. My advice: try to get into that property where someone else has already removed it and replaced it with horse-safe fence!
4. Soaking feet. This job has been made much easier in recent years by soaking boots, but I remember the old days when you sat there hunched over a pail, trying to keep your silly TB’s leg in it, for fifteen or twenty minutes in the dead of winter. By the time you were done with today’s soaking session, you felt ninety even if you were nineteen and were usually soaked to the skin from the knees down by at least one kicking-over-the-bucket incident.
5. Pulling, braiding and banding! Ugh, not only do I SUCK at this stuff but I find it incredibly tedious. I love how it looks, but this is one area where I’d rather put in a few more hours at work and pay someone else to get the job done. (I often wonder if, in my case, it comes from growing up in polo – where we solve any mane issues with a large pair of clippers!)
OK, those are my dirty jobs I don’t like doing around the barn…what are yours?
If you are in the PNW area, please read the post below this one. My friend, a wonderful horsewoman and rescuer, has had her 12 year old daughter go missing. She probably just ran away but we all know how quickly that can go wrong for a young girl, so please look at the pic and call the number if you have seen her, and share my post with everyone you know in the Seattle area!
162 comments to “Dirty Horse Jobs No One Wants To Do!”
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Sheath Cleaning. My boy is a good sport, but I hate all the gunk and stink and unless you wear gloves, even after repeated washes, my hands still stink. UGH
Tail detangling. I get about half way than want to give up.
Bandage wrapping – namely, hoof wrapping for abscesses. Ive gotten it down pretty well, but the combination of holding up the leg like my farrier, having all of my supplies scattered around me (hopefully) in arms reach, trying to get the packing on his hoof before he puts it down, while simultaneously putting gauze on and attempting to wrap with duct tape without getting on his coronary band. UGH THAT I feel ninety years old afterwards.
Frozen horse poop. Enough said.
And how on EARTH is the best way to get sweat out of saddle blankets? Ive been using my fleece bareback pad frequently, and it seems after a day flipped over with sweat side up, it is STILL wet??
If you can get into the routine of conditioning and brushing out your horse’s mane and tail every other day or three times per week, it makes it a lot easier. You can use any type of conditioner and mix it half and half with water, spray it in and let it sit for a minute, don’t rinse, and then start from the bottom using an Oster brand mane and tail brush/comb and voila! It really makes it easy when you stay on top of it. Wash the mane and tail really good with shampoo and condition thoroughly once per week in addition to the every other day conditioning/detangling. All of my horses have long tails and three of them have long natural manes and I can do this in my normal routine. Braiding the mane and tail helps A LOT but I realize this is very time consuming and most people don’t have that amount of time.
One of the few things I can think of is attempting to yank out the ‘mat’ of wet, pulverized hay/poop/urine that for SOME mysterious reason my gelding likes to make out of his food and then mash into the floor. Because it’s soaking wet, it’s incredibly heavy…argh.
Conversely, I actually kinda enjoy the regular shoveling…kind of zen and rhythmic, and poop alone isn’t that heavy.
I was recently up in Quebec on vacation riding Canadian Blacks, which have very thick, long manes that the barn owner preferred not to comb. We “de-burred” them pretty easily using a product called “Cowboy Magic”. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to get a bag size bunch off of them. Could be that they weren’t the most tenacious burrs out there but I, for one, was surprised how easily they came out.
Hey! I live in Quebec. A friend of mine has Canadien horses, but she does comb their manes and tails and does not offer trail rides. They are a rugged breed that can adapt to everything and can live out in very cold conditions. Unfortunately, the breed nearly went extinct and is slowly gaining ground again. The breed is just being discovered in the USA and accross the world. I now own a yearling Canadien colt who is very laid back, they are an exceptionnal breed!
I love “cowboy magic” for detangling manes and tails. They don’t even have to be fresh bathed for the stuff to work great. The tangles seem to remove themselves. I have a paint who has a mane and tail like a shetland pony – super long and thick and it only takes a pea sized dab run through his tail to brush out tangles. I have tried to keep him braided and bagged, but my other boys think his tail is a play toy when I do that.
COWBOY MAGIC IS THE BEST!!! i have the shampoo, conditioner, and even the thrush killer. it works way better than anything i have used in the past.
about #3, i dont have a soaking boot and have never used one but when my horse stepped on a nail a while ago, my vet gave me 2 extra large empty i.v. bags. they worked perfect! i just cut it on the top where you connect the hose thing, put his hoof in it and poured the water and duct taped it around his leg. he was so good, he even picked up his leg a few times and it never spilt or anything. most of the time i would just leave him in the cross ties and i would go clean out his stall or something and just come back in 10-15 minutes. the part that sucked the most about when he stepped on the nail was wrapping his hoof. my vet showed my a really easy way though. she would make a square with about 10″ pieces of duct tape, with one going vertical then horizontal, vertical, horizontal… then, when the square was done, she would make a cut in two of the corners going towards the center for the heel and 2 bigger cuts on the other corners for the toe. and you would just stick it to the bottom of his foot and fold the pieces that you cut around his hoof. i would still wrap some tape around his toe and heel so when he’s walking he wouldnt wear through it so fast. after a while i got really good at it. i love my vet, if she never showed me those things, it would have been a lot harder to soak and wrap his hoof.
Lice,I hate anything to do with the lice that come in on alot of the intake horses,but just try to get someone else to lice dust (winter),bathe and douse (summer),or body clip (spring) ! Body clipping a louse infested horse is really nasty,the lice run over your hand and the clipper…..Give me a cockelburred mess and Cowboy Magic or a barbed wire fence and a bolt cutter,even multiple wagons of hay to put up in the loft,anything but nasty lice and the hassle of cleanup/re-treat and the toxic chemicals needed!
You win! This sounds like the worst!
ICK! You totally win!
wow, yes, that’s go to be the worst. I’ve never seen lice on a horse except once on my pony. It was only on his mane. It took a few lice shampoo treatments and a good combing / trim, but not clipping. I guess I was lucky!
When I got a new mare who had lived in a area with lots of weeds and chapparal (deer habitat) she had dozens of ticks on her rear end and between her hind legs. eeyoo that was icky to get rid of so many ticks. I have never ever seen a tick on a horse before or since.
My horse related dirty jobs are:
1. Picking up manure / old hay that has fallen on the ground, soaked and moldy! HATE it but it has to be done.
2. I agree that burrs are a royal pain, but since I have horses that tend to have a lot of mane and tail… I just plain hate untangling it but I am ever so proud when it is done. Needless to say that I make an effort to keep burr bushes out of my pasture!
3. No sheath cleaning for me, since I have all mares, but my sister has a gelding and I help her when needed… yeah, it’s a dirty job…
4. Taking my horses from the pasture to go on a ride and finding them caked in mud, especially after a good rain… it angers me! lol! Horses are like ADD kids!
)
5. Having to trim hooves when it rains, it’s dirty, smelly and you just know that no matter how hard you try there’s going to be mud everywhere when done, including face…
I could probably come up with more, but at this point, I don’t really think they are dirty enough to qualify. No matter how dirty the task, I love my horses dearly and that’s why I do it for them. Go hug your ponies on my behalf!
You can’t escape smegma even on mares! I clean between my mares teats about 2-3 times a year and you would be surprised on how much accumulation there is, especially if they are/were broods. If you don’t ever clean there, try it, my girls love getting that itch scratched. I also hand pick every month just to give them a scratch.
I can’t say I hate doing any of my horse chores. They are a labour of love!
Cleaning mare udders: smear your hand with aloe vera gel, and then use your slimy hand to clean the udders. It’s less gross for you, and soothes the inevitable bug bites and scuffs to the undercarriage while you’re there. I have a mare who gets tortured by bugs, so I clean her udders pretty frequently.
Had to clean my gelding in short stages he had never in his 7 year life time been cleaned before. He did not enjoy, it nor did I, it was my first time cleaning a horse’s equipment. I pulled on object, a bean(?), about 1.5″ around and about .5″ thick out from his sheath and I though I had hurt him when I pulled it out because it was so far in and stuck.
My friend’s mare though squeals like a pig and tries to kick who ever is cleaning her teats.
Yes! My mare loves to be scratched there. She lifts her back leg up in the air and stretches her neck out. I have a hard time petting her front end , because she’s constantly walking forward and positioning herself to be scratched where she wants!
I did have an old mare that did NOT like it, though. It does get pretty gross, like a sheath, if you don’t periodically clean it. I’m getting my filly used to it, because it’s much easier to give scratches there every couple days than to try to clean a bunch of gunk on a horse that doesn’t like to be touched there.
I do the same thing with my gelding. When he’s relaxed and dropped, I’ll pull off any “stuff” that’s hanging there. One day my husband was watching me do this out in the pasture and commented that I pay more attention to my horse’s penis than his.
Whatever.
You do still have to do a more thorough cleaning once a year, though.
I do clean my mares about 3-4 times per year… I just think it is not as nasty!
The gunk is the same but I find it is much easier to reach and get rid of!
One mare loved an udder cleaning but she did not develop too much gunk. (There was no spot that mare didn’t like groomed and fussed over – a real sensualist.) Aloe vera sounds good. I wish I’d thought of Aloe – but I rarely use it on anything. My shetland mare was super senstive to water around the teats and she’d squeal and kick. No amount of prep got her used to the idea. I could touch then when they were dry, but a damp cloth or water on her teats apparently gave her a creepy sensation. At least little fractious ponies are easy to deal with. I wish I’d thought about aloe vera gel at the time. I just gave her a nice sudsy sponging and sprayed lots of warm water and let her dance around. Afterwards she was always cheerful and no hard feelings.
I can’t agree more about the sheath cleaning! I’ve avoided it my entire horse life, always hiring someone else to do it when necessary, and always feeling utterly guilty because I know that I should suck it up and do it myself (that and I was raised Catholic; darn Catholic guilt). Mostly I’ve avoided it by always owning mares and only training/hacking someone else’s geldings, thus avoiding responsibility for said routine maintenance. Granted mares come with their own bag of fun, but I’ll take that over the grossness any day.
-DS
Adventures In Colt Starting
My trainer had a horse that she had to clear her schedule and make sure no one was at the barn because he would go down on his toes and grunt and groan like he was in a porn.
Ever notice when it’s time to clean your horse’s sheath that’s when your elderly neighbor, devoutly religious elderly relative, religious leader, a girl scout troop and school bus full of small children go by? “OMG, what is she doing? GROSS!!!”
Ha, you don’t even know the half of embarasing sheath cleaning! I used to show the Budweiser Clydedsales, and once a week we’d do sheaths on the 12 horses we traveled with. It was common to be doing so at a fairground, showground, or heck, even random parking lots with our stalls set up under a big tent. Many times there was an audience, and we’d hear a LOT of comments, often times these were non horse ppl and found whatever the heck we were doing hilarious at our expense! And really, they are big horses, I could fit my whole forearm and then some up there! Yup, definately had more than a few men comment on that! La la, I can’t hear you, la la la…
Oh my! Now THAT is a reality show episode! I think you ought to pitch that to Animal Planet!
Good grief – why on earth did they make you do that when people were watching??? Sounds like a good job for 11:00 PM, when the crowds were gone. They had to know you guys would be mortified!
However, I think we do have a winner for an episode of “Dirty Jobs.” I can totally see Mike Rowe messing around underneath a Clydesdale. “You want me to put my hand/whole arm WHERE????” The one with him doing AI on dairy cows was entertaining, but this would be a whole new level o’ fun!
Oh yeah, Mike Rowe bent over cleaning a Clydesdale. I’d be down for that episode of “Dirty Jobs.”
These anecdotes are darn funny. I still rather pull beans out of a horses sheath than body clip for lice.
Mike Rowe did AI with a stallion once. I think he also did it with a bull. The picture was blurred out in case it was perceived as stallion porn not suitable for family television. I think they also blurred out the image when Rowe did AI on a mare.
So it wouldn’t be much to watch if he did a sheath cleaning. I rarely tell stories about sheath cleaning to non horse women and NEVER to non horse men. Because you know (roll eyes)… men….
That’s hilarious, but so true.
I’m so glad that I have no visible neighbors now. I used to keep my horses in an older neighborhood out in the country (everone had 1 – 10 acres) and I know the retired couple next door watched me out with the horses a lot. I always wondered if they thought I was a pervert.
I hate to give shots. I am a big wuss about it and I’ve had to give 10cc’s of Naxcel twice a day on various occasions. The last time was when my stallion managed to get some small stones lodged up under his coffin bone and needed surgery. So I had a stallion on stall rest in the dead of winter and I had to stick him with a gigantic needle twice a day! He’s a good boy but this was pushing his patience to the limit, especially with me shaking like a leaf from the cold and from anxiety about doing a good job with the injection. He only squealed and chased me out of the stall once
and then he was sorry and let me back in.
On the upside he’s great about sheaf cleaning and there is usually nothing much to be done as he takes care of his parts
You just need to sing the sheath cleaning song
I don’t blame you about said burs in the picture!! In case you forgot the song 
Crossposted from Horse laughs
This is a classic! Kinda glad I dont have a gelding anymore tho.
Sing it to the tune of “Hello Mother, Hello Father” from camp song
The Sheath Cleaning Song
How’s it hangin’?
So much cleaner.
Aren’t you glad I
washed your wiener?
I’ll admit it’s
kinda creepy
that I had to stick my arm up in your pee-pee.
It was sticky.
It was gunky.
It felt icky.
It smelled funky.
It was cruddy,
it was crusty–
when you stuck it out, it creaked like it was rusty.
After half an
hour of toilin’
and of squirtin’
baby oil in,
you’re as fresh there
as a daisy.
Either this means I love you or else I’m crazy!!!
LOL That is Great!
This had me laughing….I think I’ll print it off and put it up in the barn so I can sing it to my new gelding who I will get to clean soon!
Thanks for the tunes!
LOL! Awesome song, I am so glad I have a mare.
About the Barbwire (or any wire)… No one has mentioned safety glasses yet, but you need them more than gloves when your working with that stuff. My father inlaw is mostly blind in one eye because the end of the wire whipped around and stuck into his eye. Anyway… now I feel like a nag.
For another gross one for the dog people, expressing anal glands. Thankfully we don’t do that to horses!
LOL!!! I will be singing this song for a looong time! Thanks so much for adding this little musical jem to my day!
My least favorite horse chore is unloading and stacking hay. It’s prickly, itchy, and it is always an 90+ degree day that the hay comes in. I can put up with a lot of backbreaking horse labor, but every time I see a hay wagon I die inside just a little.
I took hate unloading hay in the heat. I hate throwing bales down from the loft. I hate being scratched and itchy from it. I hate finding hay chaff in my underwear. I hate tasting it in the back of my throat. One of my least favorite projects.
I’m with you on the hay stacking. We ususaly get about 10 tons and have to move and stack it by hand. The firstr row is not too bad, but we have to stack it 9 bales high to get it all in the barn. There is no way not to get hay everywhere, and it is always hot and dry that day. It is scratchy, and then you sweat and the sweat stings and it is exhausting. I would rather clean sheaths. My boys like to let it all hang out and will let me pick off the crunchies so they don’t get too dirty.
I use a dog grooming matt breaker to pull manes these days, it takes a minute, gives a good, pulled look and does not hurt the horse. I have even done my friends crazy New Forest (only wanted a bit taken off as she is Mountain and Moorland) she would not allow pulling but let me use the matt breaker even on her tail!
For those flaming burrs I use WD 40- BUT you do have to spray quite a bit on and leave it for five minutes, then it works!!
Barbed wire? I luckily have very little left but, as I am never, ever going to re-use what is still there I tend to cut it into two foot lengths as I go, that way I do not get caught up in it when it tries to wang back into a loop- two foot is too short for it’s memory and means that, with gloves, you can just gather up the bits, tie them together with baler twine and stick them on the scrap metal pile.
I would seriously wear safety goggles if I were tackling mile lengths of the stuff!
yes, that’s jut what I was thinking, safety goggles when you work with barbed wire, people! You have to take care of your eyes, because those don’t grow back!
Good call with chopping the wire short, btw. A lot of places actually pay decent money for recycled metal. You might find that you have enough $$ from barbed wire to go out to dinnr when you’re done (or pay for some stitches).
Kirri, How do you use a dog grooming mat breake to pull manes? I either use scissors or a refular mane pulling comb.
Always looking for a better way!
The only thing I hate doing is sheath cleaning, I have a mare now so that solves that problem. Even when I had a gelding my sister did him for me – she doesn’t mind at all
My mare loves having her udders cleaned – she’ll cock her leg back and up out the way so you can get to her udders and pulls the funniest faces, it’s the best thing in the world for her and definately her favourite scrach spot.
Other than that I’ve not yet come across anything I destest doing.
My #1 most hated, dirty job is trying to dislodge the tank de-icer from a 100 gallon tank with 4″ of solid ice on top when the circuit breaker trips due to a stray flake of snow. It only happens on the coldest day of the year, at least 0 with the wind chill. There is NO easy way to do this.
#2 is breaking ice out of buckets by slamming them to the ground, repeat 10 times per bucket. Southerners, you have NO idea how lucky you are not to have to do this!
#3 would be picking up manure outside in the paddocks after it rains. It weighs a ton & I can hardly push the wheelbarrow when it’s full.
#4 is filing hooves to remove a stray chip. I’m rasp challenged and can only use the fine side so it takes me forever. Ugh.
I worked at a barn in high school, and I kept my horse there. We lived in Florida and I can recall more than one winter where we had to slam buckets on the ground because they were full of ice. My TB never grew much of a winter coat and had to wear this heavy blanket. Florida winters can be bad, though not as bad as up north
Sheath cleaning is #1 on my list.
I can handle mane and tail detangling – it can be a peaceful time to think about something else while your hands do mundane tasks. The burrs are a bit more trouble.
I really loathe is keeping the trailer somewhat clean. I can spend hours scrubbing the walls and floor and panels and then soliciting help to clean underneath the rubber mats…then as soon as I haul horses, it’s as filthy as before. My horses seem to think peeing in the trailer is WONDERFUL – making it that much worse. I don’t use sawdust because it gets into cracks and holds more corrosion causing detriment in.
OMG-Sheath cleaning services? Who knew? Not around here.
Since barbed wire removal was mentioned, I’d also vote for cleaning out cobwebs/dust from barn rafters (major work as I have a “drop ceiling” of bird netting). I just spent 4-5 days on a ladder w/leaf blower and shop vac doing this. Apparently it had never been done. We moved horses into the barn in Dec 5 years ago and the hay delivery cycle wasn’t conducive to doing it until now (and the buildup was not horrible). Hard on the neck, very dirty job (wear long sleeves and pants, eye protection, a dust mask, and ear protection. Wear clothes you don’t mind throwing away. The results are very gratifying, there will be way less dust in your barn, and best of all, you will greatly reduce the propensity for a barn fire to start and spread. Never do this with horses in the barn. I don’t even recommend using leaf blowers at all with horses inside-these types of things generate way too much dust, and it will take its toll on your horses respiratory system.
I wonder if there is a super sized type of “Webster”? Websters are AWESOME for webs in the house, they have a weird frizzy plastic head that catches and holds the web, and a looong telescoping handle. They can be rinsed clean with water.
I hate the “arab dreds” that my horses get from rolling in the mud. Such a pain in the butt… but must be combed out on a daily basis.
I am also not a fan of stallion stall cleaning. I don’t know what it is, but all the stallions I’ve ever looked after are such pigs when it comes to peeing in their stall. Poop will be nicely piled in one corner, but the pee is a free-for-all…
http://36andsingle.blogspot.com/
I am avoiding cleaning and sorting the million half-empty bottles of shampoo, liniment, betadine, etc. They’re sticky, leaky, and they seem to breed. Cleaning the barn itself sucks too. Cobwebs, dust, mouse nests, dead spiders, etc. Ugh!
I don’t mind cleaning tack or grooming horses. I got mares so I wouldn’t have to clean sheaths though. Some of our geldings got pretty violent about it.
For burrs, squeeze a little Cowboy Magic at the top of the hair section then gently work it down into the matted area. Leave it in a minute or two then tease the burrs free from the bottom. If the mats are already wet, give the hair a quick shampoo and rinse then saturate with conditioner before combing. Conditioner (especially if you use Suave) is way cheaper than Cowboy Magic but sometimes it’s best to avoid getting mats wet until the burrs are out.
When working with a severely matted/burred/tangled horse, start with the getting-to-know-you sniffing and petting, do a light currying or touching session to check for possible freakouts, then put in whatever detangling agent you’re using. Clean hooves next, and by the time that’s done the burrs should be ready to come out.
Before shipping a horse to me, my mom “helpfully” cut off the forelock and chunks of mane and tail because the burrs were frozen into the hair. It probably would have been a 2-hour job to remove the burrs, or 10 minutes with Cowboy Magic. For the horse in your photo I would probably go the cheap route and saturate with leave-in conditioner. It would take longer but otherwise you’d use a whole bottle of Cowboy Magic.
My trickiest grooming job is cleaning tails. My Walker mare has a 3-color tail and it’s difficult to get the white sections clean. I try bundling it all into a bucket and she hates that. The shampoo sprayer hose attachment is the best compromise I’ve found so far. Ideas?
Best way to get tails clean is to make up a bucket of soapy water and sponge on or use a feed scoop and rub in as you apply. Use loads of shampoo and lather up really well and then leave in. If she has pale hair then use a blue shampoo of some sort. Then rinse from the top using a hose. The key is to get right down to the tail bone. Once the tail is clean spray with mane and tail conditioner and a product called mud-away (not sure if you get it in the states). It’s basically a spray on barrier and stops mud cling to the hair. This works brilliantly at stopping it getting muddy again. It works really well on feathers as well and even if they do get muddy they clean up real easy cause the conditioner and mud away stops the mud clinging to the hairs. We have 2 hairy cobs and muddy fields and found this is the best way to keep clean.
When I worked for a dog groomer we used laundry bluing on the white dogs! Got them super white bright! And it doesn’t hurt colors like bleach, so I would definitely try that. You put it in the rinse water, or you could soak the hair in it and then rinse with clear water. When the hair is dry, you WILL see how white it is!
My mom is a groomer and I used to work with her. We had “special” shampoo for white dogs – our regular shampoo with bluing (the laundry kind) mixed in. It worked wonderfully, and it doesn’t affect other colors, so you could do this with a three color tail and be fine.
My Arab is a gray sabino with 4 white socks and a two tone tail – black and white. I’ve tried any number of things to get the white part of his tail white, so here goes:
- Dawn dish soap. People swear by it, I didn’t see much improvement
- Betadine shampoo. People swear by it, I didn’t see much improvement
- Old lady grey hair shampoo, L’Oreal – cheaper than QuickSilver, easy to find. Went back to the drug store to buy more and they still no, zilch, no gray hair shampoo anymore of any brand. Tried 4 stores – nada! Gave up and went to the tack store and bought QuickSilver.
- This:
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?client=firefox-a&hl=en&q=%22white+minx%22&cid=15158110627272980837&ei=XXrHTPHJJ6bewQW89PXUDQ&sa=title&ved=0CAcQ8wIwADgA#p
Now that ^^^^^ stuff really works! You wash the tail with anything, let it dry a little, and rub this stuff in liberally. It is a temporary color and it really whitens the tail until it wears off. Perfect for show. I noticed when I searched for it to post here that they also have a mousse and a rinse. If you’re feeling adventuresome, try those as well. I found the color at several local drug stores. The person who gave me this hint said emphatically to use the White Minx – don’t know why. I notice they have a Super White Minx – I may try that some day.
Good luck – keeping the white parts white is a real challenge!
I’ve had good luck with a spray on product called “Wow” (or something like that). It has a green metallic colored label on a white bottle. I was using it on my trainer’s grey Arab gelding (he’s older, so getting pretty white) and she thought I was giving him a bath every couple days! Before I ride, I groom, then spray the mane and tail, plus any other stains. Then after my ride, I rinse it out. If it’s cold, I just spray the tail and spots and towel them off. It works great! I’m sure if you actually spent more time applying it, it would work even better.
Use Whisk for white manes and tails. A tried and true shower’s secret! Be careful though if your horse has sensitive skin not to leave it on as long.
I’m going to bitch about braiding because I have carpal tunnel in both hands – nothing like trying to braid a frisky horse’s mane using a rubber band with the same diameter as my pinky finger when I can’t feel my fingers and don’t have the ability to actually hold the braid tight. Yarn is worse!
I’m sure you already know all this or have tried it, but I’ll put it out there anyway.
I know you said you tried WD-40…have you tried Cowboy Magic? I personally love combing tails – I find it relaxing (especially when I drop some hay in front of the horse). I know it’s not the same as what you are showing above, but My OTTB used to get some NASTY dreadlocks in his tail from swishing it and I didn’t spend 1/2 hour every day brushing his tail, and when I got to it (once or twice a month) just a comb wasn’t going to cut it. One summer it was so bad that I stuck him in the wash stall, saturated the hair and dumped in about a bottle of Pantene conditioner. 
Left it in for about 10 minutes, rinsed it and it helped a LOT. When it’s too cold for that I just whip out the cowboy magic – that stuff is awesome. And I almost never use a comb. All my stuff from my clothes to my toiletries (toothbrush, hairbrush, etc) goes through phases. Starts out new and before it hits the trash usually winds up at the barn. A nice brush with the wide spaced plastic bristles (you know what I’m talking about, the ones that have the puffy thing and the colored tips, not the closely spaced ones that look like scrub brushes) do a lot for dry horse hair. And there’s always hair picks. I love the hair part.
The part I HATE. Shedding season. Twice a year it comes and I don’t know which one is worse – blowing out their winter coat or their summer coat but I wind up covered in hair, on my face, my clothes and then it’s up my nose and in my mouth and it STICKS and you can’t get it off! I HATE getting it on my face and trying to wipe it off with the inside of my innermost shirt (I’m layered, of course, to try to keep SOMETHING clean!) and find that I have horse hair right down to my underwear.
Hay. We ordered 370 bales a year or so ago. Without details, we lost most of it because of my husband. And we had to buy another $370 bales before winter. Moving hay is the bane of my existence. I always get scratched, knocked over and wind up bruised and blowing hay chaff out my nose for the next three days and itching like crazy!
Clipping’s the worst for getting everywear – short spiky hair right down inside everywear, it’s so
Meant to say it’s so itchy!! lol
I like watching the elegant lady emerge from the enormous brown yak every spring. My TB’s not quite acclimated to Texas yet! She’s got her own shedding blade and curry combs with extra-long teeth.
I used to be an equine vet tech. I think the worst things were running DMSO to founder cases and dealing with sinus infections… you know, the really stinky kinds that involve removing decaying sinus cartilage, drilling holes into horse heads and flushing out all the disgusting snot and green goo that comes with it. Nasty!!! eeeeewwww…… and smelly.
No longer a vet tech, so thankfully don’t have to deal with that stuff anymore! still have to deal with my own horse’s getting abscesses or thrush or having issues here and there like rain rot. Since I board, I don’t even have to deal with feeding/cleaning. So I’m lucky
http://www.kshai1715.wordpress.com – A Barrel Horse Learns to Jump
I rescued an emaciated TB in winter in the late ’80s. He was caked in manure, mud and rain rot. I was at a no frills barn, no wash rack, no hot water. The old timers told me the best thing to use to remove the filth was solid Crisco shortening. It was kinder to the horse and it could sit on the coat without hurting the skin. So I slathered cans and cans of Crisco on him and carefully picked and combed every bit of manure, mud, rain rot, mud fever, scratches…anything that boy had on him got picked off. It took about a week in total to remove everything. I didn’t want to keep pulling on his skin, but it eventually all came off. I do not want to think of doing that again.
Wow, I think you win the prize for worst chore ever. I’m sure the poor fella appreciated it though!
I’m sure he felt great afterwards that and it the grease was very good for his skin after all that ick. Lucky fellow.
Well my #1 is grooming during shedding season. My second #1 is clipping the winter fur ball so I don’t have to suffer the shedding season. Sort of a catch 22.
I want to throw a party when it’s time to blanket again
as there is nothing I hate more than coming out to the barn and look at the 4 legged plaster cast that has come in from the field.
I can live with sheath cleaning, braiding, even the burrs as I’m religous about pulling burdocks out of the field as soon as I seem them so it’s not a huge problem. I’ve been known to toss polos that come home with burrs stuck on them though.
The next on my list of hates (sometimes helped by #1b) is picking all of the hair stuck into my winter blankets before I send them off to be cleaned and/or fixed.
I find that my Staber washing machine is big enough hold and gentle enough to wash horse blankets so I only have to worry about repairs. Just an idea if you send out for washing more than 2 times a year. It’s 10-20 dollars a pop for blanket washing around Monroe Washington.
Oh wow, we must be related.
I HATE shedding season and tolerate clipping just so I can avoid most of the shedding. Flick comes from the “God forbid I get cold” lines, regardless of the almost two decades of being blanketed in the winter, probably due from the same amount of time of living out in the winter! In fact, I wait long enough so I only have to clip ONCE. I do confess, I love the look of my guy clipped. And blankets preserve the fact that someone’s stomach is WHITE, not brown.
Sheath cleaning, not such a big deal. No burrs here and I just put his tail up for winter so the tumbleweeds have a harder time coming back with him from turn out.
Hrm. I don’t mind most of those…I can give a few of the things I’ve had to do that sucked, though.
1. At 7am, in a thick fog, going out into a 40+ acre field and retrieving a specific one of six ponies. All of these ponies were the same height, the same build, similar temperament (I swear they must have been by the same stud or something), and they were all grey.
That is to say. White. In a borderline peasouper fog. And no, none of them came when called. You can laugh, but…
2. Have you ever steamed a horse? It’s a home remedy for equine sinus congestion that appears to be very effective, but it involves this: You get a water bucket, then you put a handful of hay in the bottom of it. Then you fill it about of the third way through with BOILING water. Then you hold the horse’s nose in the top of the bucket for about thirty minutes.
So, there you are with the noseband of a halter in one hand (if you’re lucky, the horse cooperates), and a bucket full of SCALDING HOT water being supported by the other.
Did I mention this remedy appears to be very effective? Oh wait, I said equine sinus congestion. I should have said ALL sinus congestion…by the end of five minutes YOUR nose is streaming. And you can’t let go of either horse or bucket to wipe it…
(On the other hand, the horse did seem a lot happier afterwards…)
I honestly don’t have any “dirty jobs” that I really dislike! I guess that makes me crazy.
My mare is light coloured with a mostly white tail and she loves to roll so it was getting very gross and often full of shavings and hogfuel. Plus she has a super long, full tail, so whenever she rolled or backed up she was pulling out chunks of it. So now I use a braid in tail wrap and it’s so great! Once a week I take it out, brush her tail (no big knots, tangles, or crap in it to deal with anymore), and braid it back up. Every couple months I will wash it or put in some leave-in conditioner just to make it extra nice. It works like a charm! Her tail stays clean and she can’t rub or pull it out anymore. I highly suggest using the tail braids for anyone who hates brushing or cleaning tails.
My gelding will literally kick your head off of you try to mess with his sheath when he’s not sedated. Actually he still tries to kick when he is sedated come to think of it. To make matters worse, his sheath is nasty and dirty a week or so after we have the vet out. This might sound kinda evil, but a few weeks ago he came down with mild colic and was straining to urinate (early sign of colic). While he strained and I waited for my vet to call me back, I cleaned his sheath. The poor guy probably thought he had died and gone to hell.
For saddle pads I wait until it is going to be really hot and dry out for a few days in a row. I take my dirty pads out and hose them off. Then I scrub them with a brush and mild soap or shampoo and rinse for a while. They need to sit outside and dry for a couple of days. Be sure to flip them over so both sides dry. Some pads wash up better than others. One of our boarders never washes the saddle pads. Our tack room stunk so bad that I had to do those ones too. Some people are just inconsiderate.
My least favorite task is cleaning water troughs. The thing I really dislike about it is taking the hose out and then rolling it back up. Then again, it is about 500 feet of hose to get out to the back pastures.
My pony gelding kicked my dad in the nuts with both hind feet after a cleaning. We all agreed it was justified.
I hate pulling my horse to ride and the caked on mud/dirt from a rain storm is all over..so you get your shedder/scraper and get to it and it works well BUT you and everything around you get COVERED in dirt and crap, you can go in clean and be gritty and dirty from head to toe in a few minutes flat!
Also my arab gelding needs a sheath cleaning and I am so hiring someone! I have had mares all my life before and I don’t want to try this…
First time poster!
Luckily I had the foresight to realize that at 7mos my then-stud colt Prince was the perfect age to get used to me handling “down there” and by the time I actually went for the whole cleaning shebang a year or so later he was actually very good about it. He’d cock a foot every now and then but I think that was from the discomfort (put in his place, I wouldn’t want a hand stuck waaaay up there either!!) and that’s as far as it went. Got sqeaky clean thanks to Excalibar and some old socks. Took ages for my hand to smell normal again though…yick.
Other than that I do not enjoy moving hay (mostly only due to me being somewhat allergic to it) nor picking up what they end up scattering then peeing on of a big bale. Luckily they’re in a pasture so no stalls to pick. I don’t have to worry about burrs (and yes I drop to my knees almost daily in thanks) and my barn is tiny so cleaning it isn’t that big of a deal.
Mostly just the sheaths is my #1 yick. #2 would have to be following each horse around for about an hour each trying to get a fresh fecal sample. Never thought I’d celebrate a horse pooping then again I haven’t had a colic episode yet either.
Thanks for the socks idea I was finally trying old T-shirt rags that I had bought for another purpose.
Burrs
After looking at the photo of that horse/pony I remembered a story from last summer.
A friend and I went to a back country horseman prize ride in Maple Valley. A trailer pulled in and unloaded a bunch of horses. Every single one of them had matted tails that were rock hard and tangled with burrs. It was hot; there were flies everywhere. Those poor horses tried to swish the flies but were hit with a heavy thud of burrs instead. My friend and I were horrified that the owners of the horses seemed to think this was OK. Personally I would be embarassed to take such poorly groomed horses out into public.
FOR LICE: We purchased a paint pony filly from auction that had a terrible case of lice. I was not about to wait the
two days for our vet to do the routine check-up. {other than the lice and the fact that she was thin she didn’t seem
to have any other major problems} I was not about to watch the poor filly rub and scratch and rub and scratch any
longer. I took Sevin dust and {being careful not to get it near her eyes, nose, etc.} literally dusted her. I let it sit
for about 1/2 hour-45 mins., holding her to make sure she didn’t scratch with her mouth, then rinsed thoroughly.
It did a wonderful job with no ill effects.
This was during the summer so rinsing was no problem. Had it been winter I probably would have dusted and
then rinsed, and then thoroughly towel dried her, and then throw heavy blankets on til she dried in the barn.
I echo an earlier poster: Frozen poop! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! LOL I’ve dumped warm water on it already. But it can
freeze very fast in sub zero temps.
Scrubbing algae out of the huge water tubs is fun when it’s hot but it’s a back killer sometimes.
When I got my Shire gelding, his WHOLE forelock and mane was burrs. I just chopped it off. Poof! If I’d had Cowboy Magic at the time, it would have been easier, but I knew I was going to have him for at least 6 months so it’d grow back!
RE: braiding. I don’t mind braiding, especially since my horse is reasonably cooperative. REMOVING the braids, however, is a whole ‘nother story. I would seriously pay someone to take them out.
don’t forget about the between the teats cleaning on mare’s, i think it’s just as nasty as sheath cleaning.
I don’t mind that at all – and my mare thinks it’s the best thing in the world. Baby wipes work really well, also for dock and vulva as well – make sure to use the sensitive ones.
I actually like mane pulling, braiding, and banding. Actually, like may not be the right word, but I don’t actively dislike it either. This might be because I grew up in a dressage barn, where if you took a pair of clippers to mane people would be horrified. The only time we could do that was to trim the tail.
But burrs. Oh burrs, how I hate them. They stick in my skin and clothes, and take forever to get out of a tail. And the boys just love to accumulate them. For some reason the girls never do.
Sheath cleaning is possibly my most dreaded task, although I do find it amusing to teach children how to do it for summer camp. They give you looks like “You want me to stick my hand where?”
Cobwebbing is also not fun. I always end up with gunk in my eyes, and if I happen to be wearing my contacts then it’s basically asking to go around for the rest of the day with a bright red eye.
The one thing I really really hate is having to disconnect the hose in winter so it won’t freeze. It froze for the first time this year last night, and now I’m depressed that hose-unhooking-season has come
I’ll second that. Your post just made me depressed.
Everything is WAY worse in the winter, here.
sheath cleaning was probably the worst for me. my TB hated it so much I just had the vet do it.
I hated having to disinfect buckets (we used bleach) and it took forever. my boss/barn owner (i kept my horse there and worked for her) seriously wanted it done like 4 days a week. i know it’s important, but 4 days a week seemed very obsessive.
probably stripping stalls would be the last on my list. having to take out all the shavings and sprinkle that stuff on the pee spots (is it lyme? i can’t remember) and refill with shavings. i hate it because almost all the stalls at this barn (my first barn, i worked for lessons) were like mare/foal sized and it took forever!
i can’t wait to get another horse. i miss them.
At the barn I ride at, if you come on the weekends and do the barn work (there’s a full time woman that does the morning work during the week and the students do the evening work), the BO/instructor will give you a free lesson.
There is one mare who goes in her stall at night and it’s perfectly clean, you go to muck her stall in the morning and HOLAY FRIG, can this girl ever S*it! This Sunday I swear I took 4 wheelbarrow loads out of her stall! In her case I wouldn’t mind stripping her stall, but other times I agree, long tedious and depletes your shavings pile a whole bunch.
Yeah, bleaching 4x week is pretty obsessive in my book too!
I actually really hate that job because I’m paranoid that a trace of bleach will be left behind and the horse will smell it and not want to drink. Well not so much with regular plastic buckets, but this one place I worked, she wanted the buckets disinfected regularly also but they were the rubber buckets which are kinda bumpy and get a bit ragged – it just seemed harder to rinse clean than a smooth surface.
If I had my own barn I would invest in those silver-infused buckets – I think they’re like $30 but they retard microbial growth with no weird tastes.
I’m with kates_aidan, I also have carpal tunnel so braiding is really hard. I’m lucky I own Walking Horses, and we don’t braid manes and tails for show.
I’m now getting into drafts along with the Walkers, though, so I will have to braid tails when I drive because I refuse to dock tails.
I actually don’t mind sheath cleaning. I live in AZ so we don’t have burrs, rainrot, or other moisture-related creatures and ailments like you guys have. But we do have insane amounts of flies, so scooping manure everyday has become a must. We bag it and put it in a dumpster that’s picked up once a week to keep the fly population down. Manure scooping in 100+ degree weather with no breeze and it’s like being in an oven is beyond horrible.
One thing I hate above everything else: TICKS. And fleas, but mostly ticks. I am ANAL about deworming and if I ever see even one flea or tick, everyone gets doused with Advantix/Frontline/whatever and horses are coated in fly spray that repels fleas or ticks. But again, we don’t live where there’s a lot of places for ticks and fleas to hang out as we don’t have grass, so we don’t get them really at all. I also am allergic to mosquito bites, so standing water is a HUGE no no at my house. I freak out about bloodsucking insects. Give me spiders and scorpions any day over bloodsuckers!
Overall, though, I find manure scooping therapeudic(sp?) when it’s not really hot outside and all other chores just part of horse ownership. I avoid tack cleaning by owning Wintec and biothane tack, I hose off all of my pads and blankets every time after I ride, and I don’t mind getting out tangles and dreds. Even sheath cleaning doesn’t bother me. Excalibur works wonders–I love using it! I also always wear gloves when I do it because like someone said–that stink DOES NOT wash out in a few washes! I swear, though, someday I’m going to own a small black dog and name him Smegma. I just think that would be hilarious.
Oh man, ticks. We had this one mare a few years ago who apparently ran through some bushes the horses don’t usually go into and came out COVERED IN TICKS ew! The roots of her mane and her dock were just a solid line of ticks, those big, silver colored ones. That was a bad year for ticks anyway but I never saw such a thing as that mare.
GROSS! I HATE HATE HATE pulling ticks, too. But I am gratified by the “service” I am doing my horse by removing them. Seriously, when she has a tick she lets me know by following me around and presenting me (constantly) with the area hosting a tick (usually her butt). Then, she’ll stand very still and patiently even when I’m poking around in sensitive areas (and she’s usually not patient!).
Two words: hose smut. I just HATE dragging dirty barn hoses around to water horses or the arena or anything else because of all the dirt — aka “host smut” — that gets on the hose and then onto my hands. I’m much happier if I can wear work gloves while dragging hoses. I’ll shovel stalls, clean dirty horses, get covered in mud — but hose smut is almost unbearable!
Back in New England my most detested chorses were:
-mucking frozen poop
-draining and rolling a hose in the winter so it doesn’t freeze
-fixing hot tape fencing when it’s 0 degrees out and the snow is deep. (Lesson learned- We shut the bottom strand off during snow fall so we didn’t have to ‘dig it out’ to keep it hot.)
-chipping out the damn bucket heater that either died over night or mysteriously became unplugged.
Of course- thankfully- Moving to the southwest has helped
burrs and knots definetly are on the list but thankfully I don’t encounter them too often, even on the trails.
On any geldings- I’ve always paid someone else to do sheath cleaning. I have all mares- so it’s teats cleaning but that’s done as part of regular grooming habit. I just keep a plastic glove and cheapo washclothes. Mares are sooooo much easier.
I power wash water troughs on a regular basis- so no more heartache with scrubbing algea.
But my most hated job- cleaning blankets, polo wraps, and saddle pads. I HATE it, hate it, hate it. The never look as good as they did when you first used them, they never seem to be clean enough, and I just do not want to sit and roll up wraps. I finally learned to put all the damn wraps in a mesh laundry bag to wash them so they don’t get tangle with everything else. I can’t fold a horse blanket to save my life either which makes me want to ball it up and throw it in a box. But I don’t- I make myself fumble through it a million times so it comes out at least bearable to pack in the storage bin.. (Damn OCD)
But I love cleaning stalls- go figure.
I’m so glad I live in southern California
Ugh, anything to do with tails… my first ever rescue horse Ziggy had a tail that was a giant knot from the base all the way down to 2 inches off the ground. It took me over 8 hours over the course of 3 days and an entire bottle of detangler. I guess it was great for getting him used to humans, but my fingers were bleeding by the time I was finished.
Living in Colorado it is also not unusual to spend an entire day shoveling a path through 5 foot high snow drifts so the horses can get to the water tank. And God help us all if the tank heater spazzes out…
And anything to do with puss. Having to go out at 5 a.m. in the dead of winter to flush out wounds, get the puss all over when it decides to squirt out instead of ooze, rewrap, and then hand for walk a half mile in a blizzard is not exaclty my idea of a good time.
They’re so worth it.
- taking my horses temperature – oh, the temperature-taking-thing itself is not so bad, but I absolutely detest the necessary “thermometer cleaning” afterwards. Eeeuuw !
))
- my horse and my pony both wear Horseware-Turnout-rugs. Those rugs don`t have leg straps, but a strap underneath the tail…Eeeeeeuuw again. Cleaning these straps in the middle of winter – so NOT my idea of having fun.
- braiding and clipping. I clip a bridle path regularly during the show season, but otherwise don`t bother to do anything (well, except brushing and applying detangler) with my horses mane/tail.
- paying vet bills.
My horses wear horsewares blankets too, and I love them except for that tail cord. After like a month of use they are caked in poop and disgusting! I take mine off every month or so and soak them in bleach and hot water. The poop comes right off and they’re clean again! It’s still gross though!! This winter I’m going to buy extra tail straps so I can rotate and keep them clean.
My horses wear mostly the Horseware blankets as well, and last year I’d had enough stanky tail strap (especially with our geriatric DraftX mare)and got smart. I had a girl on Etsy who makes biothane dog collars/leads/etc make me tail straps for my blankets out of beta-biothane! Let me tell you it was the BEST MONEY SPENT IN YEARS.
1) I hate body clipping. I can’t draw a decent outline of a saddle pad OR the leg lines to do a trace clip, so it’s the whole horse. Itchy me, but thank goodness he’s good. I clip because he grows a coat like no tomorrow and it’s difficult to get him dried out after a ride if he’s not clipped.
2) He’s also very good about sheath cleaning. I use KY Jelly and slather it up in there really good. Most of the guhguh comes out easily. I clean about every four to six months.
3) I can’t wrap polos to save myself. The velcro parts always end up on the inside of the leg or the horse looks like he’s got elephantiasis on one or more legs.
4) Tack cleaning. Dirty job but someone’s gotta do it. I hate seeing others ride in dirty tack and I know cleaning regularly (like the helmet rule, “every ride every time”) helps keep tack safe. You see something starting to tear or come unstitched BEFORE you’re on the horse. Better safe than sorry.
5) Mane thinning. My horse has a huge cowlick in the middle of his neck and the hair grows thicker and goes “every which way.” He also grows hair (see “body clipping” above), so I use the clippers and zizz off the bottom two inches or so and then get thinning shears, cutting vertically to thin rather than using a comb to “pull” the mane. My hands aren’t that strong and I don’t want him to get “thinning shy.”
I have a tip on foot soaking: Flood the paddock. I did that yesterday when I forgot to turn the water off when filling his trough. Argh.
OMG, TBDancer, your comment about elephantitis is SO true! That is exactly my problem! I cannot wrap legs to save my life. I hope I never have to do it because I’m so bad at it. I need one of those plastic legs they use to model hoof boots or support boots so I can practice!
For the clipping, put a saddle on the horse and draw around in chalk. If the horse is grey or coloured you can use permanant marker – you’re clipping the hair off anyway.
For the legs follow the line of the muscle at the top of the leg – this gives a natural line to follow and looks good.
I heard/read somewhere to make an outline with masking tape, I would use tape that doesn’t grip to hard (maybe blue “painter’s” tape or even cheap clearish scotch tape?). You outline where you want to keep the hair, and clip around that, and it shouldn’t be much harder then coloring between the lines is. =)
Draining pus from abscesses. My mom’s Hanoverian developed an abscess following shots. Vet did everything right in terms of cleanliness and wiping the area down first – mom was standing there watching – but for some reason he got a MASSIVE abscess in his neck. When the vet drained it the first time it must have rained down a quart of bloody pus all over everything, and it had to be kept clean and drained every day after that.
I don’t mind sheath cleaning, I haven’t had a boy in a while but my old Appie used to let down on the washrack anyway, which made things simple, you just wiped him out every time and never had to clean a massive build up.
I actually really enjoy braiding. I’m naturally good at it and have a system where I just sort of use my hands as a shuttle. Braiding is how I used to earn money for shows as a teenager. I could do four, five horses between 4.30 am and 8:00. And this was those tiny little hunter braids back in the 80′s, plus tails. There’s something magical about being there before anyone else is, in the gray pre-dawn, just you and the horse.
We had that abscess problem that happen to us once as well with our horse. The vet did it, but he said it was quite possible that there was a microscopic piece of dirt that flew onto the needle before he stuck it in and it got in the skin, and it was windy the day he did the shots. But he was an amazing vet and I certainly didn’t fault him on that one issue. It’s never happened since.
I actually don’t mind pus or blood. In fact, the more pus I can get out, the happier I am because I know it’s getting the infection out. I love seeing fresh, bright red blood because I know it’s healthy and is helping heal the wound. I’m very good at cleaning wounds and keeping them clean so they heal properly. My cleaned wounds never get proud flesh. But I’m also a horror film fan and LOVE to watch surgeries on TV, so perhaps I’m just weird that way.
Yup me too – took me while to get the confidence to do shots thou. The coolest thing ever was watching the vet geld my sister’s colt!
Nothing gets burrs out like Cowboy Magic Detangler/Shine. No waiting or fussing necessary, you just pour it on and start combing or fingering through. It even helps keep the stickers from poking into your fingers…its that wonderful.
I pretty much hate doing what most have said, but I love the accomplishment after these things are done. Its wonderful to feel like your horse is taken care of. Truth be told I do not mind sheath cleaning! Guess it’s my calling in life. LOL My least favorite chore has got to be bringing horses in when it is raining. I just hate catching them (when of course they are completely spooky and on the frisky side and have little to no desire to be caught), getting through the gate, slopping through the mud…ish. Definately my least favorite thing to do.
I was just about to suggest Cowboy Magic Detangler! I agree: it’s a miracle worker for burrs!
As far as sheath cleaning, my boys spread their back legs wide and invite someone to clean them. They’re whores.
I agree with the barbed wire. My friend moved into a house that had quite a bit of it, and for some strange reason I volunteered to help remove it.
Normally, I don’t mind cleaning stalls at all. But in the winter – it’s torture. Everything freezes, including my face. And I had a very memorable experience straight out of a movie… where a full wheelbarrow proceded to pull me down an icy hill. Of course I didn’t want to go down that hill, so I had to push it back up.
We had two horses start a fight over the fence, and they managed to pull two whole strands of electric fence down. (One escaped unscathed, the other was on stall rest for 8 weeks. Smarties.) So we decided instead of restringing the fence, we’d just pull the t-posts and make it one big paddock. Pulling T-posts…. not fun. Especially when the barn owner says we’re going to reuse them so don’t bend them. Imagine two 16 year old girls, in 95 degree heat, trying to pull T-posts out of the ground and all we had was one pair of gloves.
But, I have to say that my #1 most horrible job ever is removing cobwebs from the barn. My friend and I always asked what we did wrong when we were asked to de-cobweb the barn. We learned the hard way – when cobwebbing…. never talk. Or at least where a mask or something to keep that junk out of your mouth!
Recently, the nastiest thing that I’ve had to deal with is cleaning up my mare after she goes into heat. Just…EW. I normally keep her tail up in a tail bag, but I decided to forgo bagging until she calms down because I am sick of removing goopy tail bags and having to clean her tail AGAIN. So I just put it in a simple braid and let her squirt away at her new pasture mates…which are all mares, by the way. LOL
I actually don’t mind sheath cleaning. My horse stands still and dozes off while I clean him up. He’s fairly smooth and easy to clean….unlike my first horse who was all wrinkles and all crud D:
I don’t mind burrs either, unless you’re trying to get them out of a certain unnamed weanling’s mane who decided that he WANTS his burrs in his mane and will do anything in his power to keep them stuck there.
I hate, hate, hate, HATE stacking hay. Grass hay isn’t too bad unless it’s really hot out. Alfalfa makes me rage no matter what temperature it is outside. It’s the most miserable job I’ve ever had to do. I’ll scrub water tanks, clean stalls, fill groundhog holes with rocks, mow pasture, ANYTHING but stack hay. It’s miserable, it’s scratchy, it’s dusty, the bales aren’t always baled nicely so they’re too loose and floppy, making them impossible to stack correctly…..UGH.
I hate weedwacking too, but mostly because I’m bad at it. I let out way too much string and I end up breaking big pieces of it off.
I swear to you-this is why God gave woman (OK I am going w/ the gender odds here-please forgive transgressions) the DR trimmer! HUGE help along with pressure washer for stock tanks, jumps, etc.
I also forgot I HATE removing ticks. If I can get away with it, I’ll ask someone else to remove them. They’re so foul and bloodsucky and AWFUL. When I have to remove them myself, I have to fight to not gag
We found one on a broodmare at work yesterday, and it was the size of a pinhead, and I was STILL squeamish about removing it. Ick ick ick I hate ticks.
Combing beggar lice off after trail riding! I didn’t realize it was one of my most dreaded chores until this past weekend when we rode through some tall weeds on a trail ride. Our horses got covered in beggar lice! My hubby was riding my paint horse which at 14.3 hands is lower to the ground than my horse was, so he was covered in hundreds of them, all over his chest, belly, his “nether regions”, even on his face and muzzle, and IN HIS NOSTRILS! It took me quite a while to get them off when we got back to the trailer. Thankfully, I had a curry comb in the trailer, and it was the only thing short of picking them off that worked. Here is a picture I took of them when we came out of the weeds and I realized what had happened….hope the link works
Oh wow. Yuck. What are “beggar lice”?
They are the seed of a type of weed that is very common here in the south. They stick to anything and everything. I had to scrape them off the saddle blankets and our clothes too before washing them….even water won’t get them all off!
Oh what a sorrowful sight! Ours are shorter than that and mostly get on my socks when I’m trying to catch horses.
Beggar lice??? I never heard that one. LOL! But know those demons well. I always called them “boobie lice”. Beggar, boobie, boogie, whatever. It’s all nasty!
Those things are a pain. Are those flat and triangular in shape? If so I call them flat burrs, a pain to get rid of none the less.
I haven’t read comments yet, so forgive me if I repeat what someone has already said:
1. Burrs. Unless they are in the forelock (horses don’t much like being messed with there for very long), I have to admit that removing burrs is one of my favorite jobs. Yep, weird, I know. But I really do love it. It’s soothing, like doing a puzzle. Besides, the end result is so darn rewarding! So this one I don’t agree with– while I hate having burrs in horses’ manes and tails, I love taking a project and fixing it up.
2. Barbed Wire, or Junk in general. AMEN, SISTER! I just bought a new property a little over a year ago. Went through everything with a fine tooth comb, a magnet, and about a billion pairs of eyes. Two days ago, I started laughing at our mare, because she was acting ‘goosie’ about a stick caught in her tail. Imagine my embarrassment and horror when she came over for help, and I discovered that the stick was a two foot long bent piece of barbed wire, caught in her tail. Folks, these horses are not in a large space. HOW do things like that hide for months?! Oh, and regarding removing barbed wire– cut it up. Be very careful to collect all the pieces (No, the one in her tail wasn’t one I cut and left behind), but cutting the stuff with bolt cutters ($20 at most hardware stores) keeps it from tangling and ‘springing’ around so badly.
3. Weed removal. It’s neverending, they all grow at once, and unless sprayed with toxic chemicals, they grow right back faster than the grass. I hate everything about weed removal.
4. Clipping horses that don’t like it. I don’t mind clipping horses that are quiet, but it’s one of those battles I HATE fighting with horses that don’t like to be clipped.
I can’t believe no one has posted the Sheath Cleaning instructions, a la “Mr. Hand”
Funniest thing I read in years….
http://jmatt.net/ElecEq/sheath.html
This is fab ROFLMAO
1) I hear you on the burrs (which is a dirty job for me)! One of our young Friesians got out the other day (right before he was about to go to the keur!) and took himself for a walk right into a patch of burr bushes looking for grass. He looked like the horse in the picture, I kid you not. And with Friesians, that’s not a job you can fix with clippers! A very long night and several gallons of veggie oil and cowboy magic later, we got them all out.
2) Cleaning horse pee out of the barn aisle! I hate how it splashes everywhere (especially on concrete), hate getting sawdust for it, hate soaking it up and the damp spot it leaves before it dries…
3) Cleaning sheaths for all reasons stated already
4) Trying to get mold off uncared-for tack (not mine!)
5) Cobwebbing the barn. I wear a mask and safety glasses and bandanna on my hair, but all the crud still manages to get all over you, down your shirt, in your hair, etc.
With deburring or detangling horsehair, remember to PULL THE HAIR FREE, not just try to remove the burr, it will only break up! Pull the hair free strand by strand, and soon, wow, flowing free! If the horse is patiently standing, I’ll do this one for hours!
Sheath cleaning – ugh! Hire that out! I’d rather do dogs’ anal glands!
Worming…. umm, no, I don’t look good covered in paste! I can never get that thing far enough back to prevent the horse form spitting out on me! LOL!
No one mentioned removing bot eggs. That’s my most hated. I’m always afraid they are going to blow into my mouth and I’ll get one of those things. A kitten someone dumped on us as children had a bot emerge from the back of her head, and it was the most horrifying thing we saw as kids. Scarred us for life. The cat too, she lived to be 20 but never lost that scar. Hate hate hate those things.
I recall many weeks with our first horse and a dishpan trying to soak his foot. He stepped on a rusted metal bolt in the pasture, and it went through the frog, and out above the coronet band. He did not care for the dishpan being brought close to him, or to be wet, or to place his precious foot in it, and we spent hours every day fighting to get his foot in the water. He couldn’t heal up fast enough!
I have a mare whose anatomy is such that if her poo is somewhat soft, it gets all over her backside and I am required to clean it off for her. YUCK. And she either makes threatening gestures or thoroughly enjoys it. I don’t care for either response.
I really hate the shedding season. I am allergic to horses, hay, all their bedding, dust and such, and so I always get asthmatic and break out in hives, and a rash that sometimes requires taking me to the ER. When I can bathe them every once in a while and keep everything clean, I can stay pretty well. I’ll bear the misery to be around horses. When I had my Arabian filly at a trainer, the trainer kept laughing cause my asthmatic cough would make everything in the barn jump, human, barn cats, everything, except for my green mare. She never even twitched. The filly would look at everyone like, “What’s your problem?”
The rest of the family’s most hated barn chore is giving shots. They’ll make me drive across the state to give a sick horse a shot. They complain that it’s hard to “hurt the horse” with the needle. And these are the same people who held me down for many, many injections throughout my childhood.
We have all mares now so no more sheath cleaning. \o/ That was a most hated task as well.
Sandpaper works wonders for removing bot eggs.
AUGH – BAD, BAD IMAGE of the kitten!!!! You poor kid… I do not understand why anyone would watch that show on TV (maybe Nat Geo channel?) where *things* are inside people, squirming around, or eating, or hatching, or doing God-knows-what-else. I would never sleep again if I saw that. I can’t even handly poison ivy, much less something living in me. GAAAAAHHHH!
On the other hand, I could care less about giving shots. Humans, dogs, horses, no big deal. I save quite a bit doing my own dog vaccinations, and take care of a diabetic woman, so it’s old hat to me. I think I should hang out my shingle as a clipper and shot-giver!
If it’s any consolation, the bot that sometimes gets into kittens isn’t the same species as horse bots
And none of the bots in the U.S. can infect humans, thank God. That said, bots of any variety are the most disgusting things on the planet. Scraping the eggs off is gross but at least I’m helping shrink future generations!
OT.. This article just came out. The Arizona Dept. of Agriculture has developed a registry of approved horse rescues. Arizona Equine rescue Organization (AERO) is the first horse to receive this approval. You may have seen one of AERO’s more spectacular rescues earlier this year when a horse was rescued by helicopter from a flooded river here in AZ.
Here is the article
http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2010/10/26/state-agriculture-department-launches-registry-to-help-abandoned-horses/
I have never owned my own horse, so many of these things, like sheath cleaning, I have yet to experience. YIPPEE – I can’t wait!
Although I actually don’t think that particular thing would bother me too much… but if I have hooves flying around my head because it bothers Mr. Horsey, then it certainly won’t be much fun.
I can already tell you that out of everything mentioned I would be most likely to balk at the lice and barbed wire. Creepy-crawlies in the barn/house don’t thrill me, but ON an animal or a person- I’m really not happy. I just found fleas on the dog (bad mommy, forgot the Frontline this month) and that’s got me totally squicked out. Even though there were only two*! I panic over ticks, too. Guess I’ve never gotten over finding one attached behind my ear in 7th grade French class. (*Yes, I know, I’m sure that means there’s lots more despite not seeing them)
Barbed wire – I’ve had some unpleasant encounters with that stuff. When I was 15 I ripped open my favorite down jacket when I just *had* to go climb a mountain located behind a 3-strand fence. I thought I’d held it safely out of the way, but that stuff has a mind of its own! I definitely wouldn’t enjoy clearing any away. Kudos to all of you who have persevered in the name of horse safety.
I do love braiding/messing with manes and tails, and have de-burred plenty in the past. Extremely hard on the fingers! I didn’t know about Cowboy Magic, though; that will be purchased and kept in the dog grooming supplies for when the Springer Spaniel, who I keep fully-feathered, decides to romp in the cockleburr bushes again at grandma’s house. I also love clipping, despite the itchy clothes, and currently do my own dog grooming as well as helping horsey friends with their clipping. Call me a weirdo…
A helpful hint on burrs:
If you crush the burrs with pliers they pull out much, much easier! I learned this when I was stuck with digging burrs out of a collie’s coat one day at the vet’s office.
I’ll trade braiding for somebody to clean the sheaths anyday.
It’s not even so much the ick factor that I dislike – it’s the fear that I’m going to somehow hurt the horse with my inept attempts, or that he’s going to hurt me. So yeah, paying someone else to do it is usually the end result.
I like braiding – it’s kind of soothing and meditative, the repetitive motions. And making $20-$40 for an hour’s work is not so bad either.
Not so soothing with those few horses who are dead set against it and like to move around and toss their heads constantly throughout the whole procedure. A couple of horses have made me really wish they could speak English so I could say to them “It would be over FASTER if you would kindly STAND STILL, you DUMMY!”
I think what I hate the most, the thing I find most difficult and that tries my patience like nothing else is… doing ANYTHING with a disobedient, bratty, spoiled, or even overly-spooky horses. I hate doing certain things with certain horses, simply because of how they behave/react.
Case in point: I don’t mind cleaning sheaths in general, but I HATE cleaning my 13-year-old gelding’s sheath, because he’s an ass and tries to kick my head off and it inevitably becomes a Battle of Epic Proportions. I generally don’t mind pulling manes or braiding (I tend to get ADD and lose interest halfway through, though). I HATE pulling or braiding my pony’s mane because she can’t stand it, and fidgets and moves and constantly shakes her head. When we first got her, I hated doing everything with her- catching, leading, tying, blanketing, clipping, etc, because she was such a spooky fruitbat. She has gotten a million times better, but the mane braiding is still an issue (as is trailer loading and clipping her ears, but we’ll get there).
If my horses are obedient and hold still, I don’t have an issue with anything- everything is more enjoyable with a cooperative horse. EVERYTHING. I strive every day to get them all to that point, but some are harder than others.
Oh, I am at the point where I find repairing hotwire in the rain to be a royal PITA. I also hate stacking hay with a passion (especially since the nice hay that I prefer to buy only comes in 125lb bales! But it’s NICE hay and my horses love it and do so well on it that I suck it up and do it anyway. I still hate it though- if I win the lottery, the FIRST thing I would do is hire someone to stack tons of that pretty hay for me).
The one thing that will always make me gag: soggy poop floating in my horses’ water buckets. My TB mare LOOOVES to poop in her water buckets. When I clean them, it’s all I can do to keep from vomiting. My mare’s soggy poop STINKS and is a nasty consistency. Even the plastic buckets smell like that after I rinse them out, so I have to scrub them with dish soap before the stench goes away. So foul…. *shudder*
The mare I leased did the whole poop in full water bucket thing once, I agree that was HIDEOUS to encounter, and then to clean! ::shudder:: However, I wound up using baking soda and that not only scrubbed it nicely because of the gritty texture, but it totally got rid of the smell!
On the “grossest thing” line, I once cleaned a stall that hadn’t been cleaned in MONTHS, and straw was used for bedding. It was repulsive. Not only did it just plain smell in the most gagworthy way, but the fumes from urine were choking, especially once I got rid of the bedding. I had to use a shovel and dig through layers of straw and shit and caked urine in 90 degree weather. Even after letting it air out for a day (oh yeah, this was a dirt floor!) it still reeked. So I went to Sam’s Club and bought a big bag of baking soda and poured it all over the floor. Within minutes the reek was gone! I thought maybe my nose might have gone on strike, so I dragged some people in to check and they also smelled nothing. I love that stuff.
Thank you for the suggestion! My older gelding pees in one spot and no matter how much bedding there is, or how often it’s cleaned, the spot smells. Since I am unemployed, the “dry stall” products are not an option, but a big bag of baking soda should be very cost effective!
Foot soaking is more frustrating than anything – my pony had one foot that was really, REALLY hard to pick up, and of course that was the foot that needed soaking. It took almost as long to get the foot in the bucket as it did to soak it. After the first two weeks, he was really losing patience with the whole ordeal and started walking out of the bucket (which would also tip it over, spilling the precious blue stuff inside that he was soaking in). There was a horse in college who got his feet packed with maggots.. that was pretty nasty.
I think my absolute least favorite job when I was working in the barn in college was breaking the ice in the buckets in the dead of winter. You got wet, and it was so cold that you were just miserable and your fingers would be red and raw and nearly frostbitten by the time you were done.
Sheath cleaning is pretty nasty, I’ll agree… the first time I did it, I nearly puked when I got the “bean” out and saw what it looked like (like a wad of old white chewing gum). I found that if I wore a rubber glove while doing it, it was somewhat more tolerable knowing my bare skin wasn’t coming into contact with that nasty smegma junk
I’m not a fan of cleaning the slimy algae goo out of buckets, either.
Slogging through mud that goes to mid-calf in the cold also sucks. The area right around the pasture gate always seems to get that way… and you always wind up with your shoes and feet soaked.
And, finally, I hate shoveling shavings out of the sawdust pile into wheelbarrows. The dust, eegads, the dust! Inhaled, coating your skin, getting into your eyes… hate that
Wow, the burr picking isn’t that hard to do. I just posted about it on our store’s website last week:
http://www.vancestore.blogspot.com
You just keep giving light spritzes of Show Sheen and use a rake type of comb, carefully rake out the ones on the surface or that aren’t horribly inbedded in the long hairs (these come out pretty well and fast) and then pick at them with the rake until they start to come apart. Took me about 20 min. per horse and they were pretty bad (about 2 weeks worth of inattention). Having been a dog groomer forever really helped. Picking them by hand will take you forever.
I have no idea how to clean a sheath. I had someone who was going to show me and never did. I got a bottle of stuff, just don’t know what to do with it….
You guys are crazy! I love it all. I love to clean sheaths (my boys are squeeky clean), I love to stand and pick burrs, I love love love to trim hooves, body clip, give baths, clean tack, bale hay, etc. I consider it all time well spent with my horses. Much better than just about anything else I can think of. And, I am allergic to everything in the barn and horse related!
Ugh- body clipping the showhorses. WHY did I pick such a labor intensive breed? The first clip of the year looks like you scalped them, then you have to clip before every show, but by the time Nationals rolls around sometimes you have to clip two or three times during that ten days!!
And the HAIRS! They find their way into the MOST uncomfortable places! I’m found them embedded in, um, “the girls”. Talk about an owie!! Once I found one embedded in the bottom of my FOOT.
Yuk sheath cleaning. eeew clipping the lice infested horses .. just gives me the heeby jeebies thinking about it…..Then the burrs out of the manes would be next…..I don’t have anymore horses but the sheath cleaning would be the worst … but I am wondering? Did the mustangs get their sheaths cleaned? I wonder how they are with that not being done.
Its a little thing but I hate to hoof black cause I normally end up with it ALL OVER ME!!!
I do LOVE to band and pick out manes and tails. Its cathardic and relaxing for me
I hate having to use curve tip syringes to clean out any wound. I dont know why but the skinny little tip on them skeezes me out and I have a hard time angling them so they dont shoot out all over. Normally into my face.
I love to spit shine and get a horse ready to show, even if it means staying up until midnight and getting up at 4 am
Oh, I second your comment on the Hoof Black! I swear, they should just package the stuff in half-bottles because I don’t care who you are or how careful you are, the first time you use a new bottle you spill half of it anyway, and it gets all over you, your horse’s legs, the ground, your boots, your jeans, your shirt… An advantage to showing Apps — you use Clear hoof polish which isn’t anywhere near as nasty! Still, when I quit showing halter many moons ago, I quit using Hoof Black.
Re: the hoof blacking, this makes me think about our good friend Mr. Goerge Morris. Every darn month in “Jumping Clinic,” he carps about horses not having painted feet (among other things, but don’t get me started. Yes, he’s great and ALL THAT, but sometimes he just needs to freaking RELAX). I honestly think I don’t see that very much any more at the H/J shows I go to watch. Am I nuts, or is this just not important/in fashion anymore? Fine with me – it’s a pain in the neck and not especially good for them anyway!
OT: I can’t help it, I just need to vent a bit more about “Jumping Clinic.” George loves to pick on horses whose knees are not even over the fence, especially those with one knee 5″ or 6″ lower than the other. To wit: “This is a DANGEROUS HORSE, it’s liable to hook a leg behind a fence and FLIP OVER.” Well, I’m here to tell him several things:
- I’ve been riding/watching hunters for over 40 years and I have yet to see a single, solitary horse flip over a fence after catching a leg. I know it certainly happens in eventing, but I’ve never seen it in hunters. That’s not to say it can’t happen – but IMHO, it’s unlikely.
- Having said that, no, I’ve not always watched and certainly not ridden top-quality hunters with perfect front ends – in the latter case, far from it! My faithful schoolies were never going to bring home blues at A-shows, but neither did they rotationally fall, despite plenty of uneven-ness and leg-hanging.
- Finally, some of those photos he complains about depict a horse going into a fence, not in midair yet, who’s just a little, tiny bit slower bringing up one leg. Again – not a big whoop, I don’t think!
- This all bugs me no end because I resent George implying you should only buy horses with perfect front ends. Sorry, George, we’re not all millionaires riding zillion-dollar horses in (I’m sure) free $5,000 Butets.
You’re right. I do, however, GREATLY appreciate Mr. Morris critiquing equitation that NEEDS to be critiqued. Everybody wants to jump when they aren’t good enough to jump yet and THAT RUINS HORSES and PUTS YOU IN THE E.R.
I LOVE when people rant, so rant on girl!!!
Hes bitter and tired of dealing with people. I think it happens at the highlight of a horse persons career. They are riding high until they realize that they keep getting asked the same thing over and over and that they keep answering with the same phrases over and over. Something clicks and they realize that nobody “gets it” and that they may as well just be rude and nasty because they are so “awesome” people still cling to them. They Put the perfect horse in a box and anything outside of that is not worth their time, and really “the perfect horse” doesnt exist once they get to this point!
Honest to gods truth I had a friend with a gorgeous (blue roan if thats what you would call him) appy cross and she would take a pain brush and go over every line on her geldings hooves, wait a couple of hours for it to soak in, sand it lightly and then do clear on the whole hoof.
I seriously thought about turning over a frisbee (or some other low and flat container), putting the hoof black in the center and surrounding it with cement. I’m not sure if it would keep the jar from tipping or not but I have had this crazy thought for a while, LOL!!
I agree about cleaning sheaths, infected sinuses, ticks and lice and abscess. But I also agree about feeling good when I’m done because I can see results. I’ve worked for almost 2 decades in different vet clinics and with exotics, dog, cat and horse rescue.
But for me, I think the absolute worse is cleaning maggots out of wounds. For some reason seeing the creepy crawly things makes me nauseous. Yuck yuck yuck! One rescue horse I dealt with had rain rot that became infected with maggots from her ears to her tail. I have never seen anything like it and hope to god I never do again. And of course no one else could deal with it. Even the vets were grossed out. So so nasty. I cab deal with cleaning sheaths, worms, diarrhea and other gross things but maggots are to much.
When it is below freezing and your horse gets diarrhea. Nasty! Washing out a poop popsicle that used to be a tail. Sheath cleaning is not so bad, but dealing with break-up and it’s all muddy and nasty out in the corral. Yuck. Also, clipping/shedding is pretty low on the wish list. I always forget to keep my mouth shut!
AND…most annoying`dealing with a horse that was either an orphan or is super spoiled and is always up in your face/space…I HATE that!
OK, I’m remembering some of the cold weather problems. Having a mare pee into her tail and having her tail turn into a giant pee-cycle. Gross. Not a damn thing you can do until the weather thaws and it melts.
I only read half way through the comments and couldn’t believe no one mentioned HAY!!! Always has to be the hottest, muggiest July day if you want the nice second cutting. It’s 10 degrees worse in the loft. Chaff down your shirt. UGG!!!
And what’s with the way trees ONLY fall down on a fence line? Usually cracking the wooden post (can’t it just fall in between on the rails?)
I gave up digging out the tank heater when it shorts out overnight at 5 below zero. I just went and bought another one and melted from the top down.
Otherwise, love cleaning stalls, deburring manes/tails (I’m a picker), vet does the sheaths. Oh! lugging in 50# bags of feed sucks too. And riding them is the best!!
Allergy shots. Hate giving them but they work. Finally down to one every ten days. It was miserable when it was every other day. Almost looking forward to the once a month. Horse looks great though.
I also hate washing blankets. Especially mud encrusted heavy winter ones. UGH. It was worse in the barn in town if I left them in the tackroom. Barn cats would piss on them. Hideous. There are about 60 cats at that barn. Finally one of the queen kitty girls decided she ‘owned’ me and my tackroom…all pissing halted. lol Those dirty kitties where no longer allowed in.
I have only had a couple of horses in my life. So I can’r really think of anything specifically that I hated to do at least on a regular basis.
I used to help my neighbor when i was a teenager with her horses. She didn’t have outside water source’s that worked in the water (could never get any water out of the pipe’s for some reason, she must have kept them turned off in the water for no insulation maybe). We always had to go outside at least two times a day with an axe and break up the ice in the troughs. Plus I had to carry multiple five gallon bucket loads of water from the bathtub inside the house to those same troughs with usually about 3-4 feet of snow on the level.
I do remember one easter having to put up emergency fencing in 30 degree weather with 40 mph winds in northern texas. We had a cowboy friend help us out and it took maybe a couple of hours, but it was so bitterly cold!!
I also forgot to mention I grew up in Northern Lower MI. We used to go to Mackinaw Island every summer (family friend inherited a house there). They havepeople whose sole job is to walk down the streets scooping up horse manure (“road apples” lol)
This isn’t a job, but the horse-related thing I hate THE MOST is getting shocked by the electric fence. It just instantly pisses me off. I think electric shock has got to be the worst feeling in the world. Here in the wet Pacific Northwest, you’re pretty well grounded, too. Yow!
This was a great post to read, tks for brining it up
Cleaning burrs; no fun, but such satisfaction at the end. I won’t use WD40, too toxic. Oil would never wash out afterwards. Any detangler, especially silicone based, works great. And yes on pulling the hairs out of the burrs, not the other way around, will prevent breakage and save the tail/mane. Will have to try the ‘crushing burrs w/pliers’ 1st method
Trail riding and getting covered in beggar lice. Learned a new term. A curry does not seem to work for me, so I have to do it by hand
Hate hate hate pulling manes. My TB has the mane of a pony, very thick and grows in all directions. And he hates having it pulled. But as one who professionally braided as a teenager (to help pay for my shows), only a properly pulled mane braids properly. I wish braiding would go out of style (like docking draft horses’ tails) but they sure look good when all groomed up and braided
I don’t get ‘hoof black’ at all. It’s drying to the hooves and a mess to use. Why not just have clean hooves and use a shiny hoof conditioner?? Hoof black looks very artificial to me
I can wrap legs, give shots, clip w/the best of them
I don’t like stacking hay, but I LOVE the end feeling of knowing I will have enough hay for the whole winter plus some, enough to free choice feed all the horses
I can’t get bot eggs off for the life of me. I’ve tried the special knife, the block, sandpaper. Finally I read an article where you spread a thin layer of vegie oil over them. Won’t get them off, but it smothers them so they die
I rinsed out/scrub my water buckets every few days, so they never get slimy
I scrub water tanks every time they are refilled, so they never get slimy
I brush off blankets right on the horse’s back every time they are groomed, so they never get really muddy/gross. I love Rambos, but won’t use them because of that #$%^& tail strap LOL
(give me a Schneiders blanket any day, great quality for the price)
Wouldn’t you rather work a tad more more often, than have to do the big gross job??????
Shoveling dusty sawdust in a wheelbarrow? Been there, done that. Won’t buy dusty shavings anymore. Horrible for the horses anyways
Never had to deal w/lice. Very lucky on that one
Ticks on the other hand GROSS ME OUT. Finding them on me makes me want to throw up. Picking them off my horses and having to crush them between my fingernails to make darn sure they are dead, is even worse. If my hammer is right there, I smash them against the concrete floors
Oh but I do hate those things w/a passion
I agree on being shocked by the electric fence being a thoroughly horrible experience
As for cleaning sheaths…
Where do I start…
Using all that oil, etc, and elbow grease just makes it produce more gunk, in my honest opinion. Am I the only one to have backed off on cleaning sheaths???
Oh and I’ve only owned geldings. I run my finger in as far as I can in their sheath every so often when I groom them. Any feel-able piece of gunk gets gently pried out. If they happen to drop when I’m there (weather when I’m grooming them or when I visit them outside, or I happen to be there when they drop to pee), I very gently grab the head of their penis and pry off any dried piece of whatever is on there. Never found a bean on any of them. Yes they do suck back in when I grab them, but I have enough time to get a few pieces off if needed. Because I approach the whole thing gently, I’ve never had one of my horses try to kill me, even if they object about it. But then all my newly arriving horses have had ground manners THOROUGHLY instilled in them 1st. When they respect you, they can object, but they don’t try to ‘kill’ you
If the vet has to tranq. them for any reason, I have him check for a bean (never found one)
If I had a mare, I would check/clean her udder the same way
We will be cleaning out a lot of barb wire on our newly acquired property. Not looking forward to that one
Tks for all the suggestions, especially cutting it in pieces, instead of trying to roll it up
Most important, have fun w/your horses, keep a leg on each side, and wear your helmet ‘every time, every ride’
I don’t show and have never braided a mane (or pulled) but I wonder if people ever do that style called a Running Braid. I think it is pretty and it looks like you wouldn’t have to pull the mane. Is this style out of fashion?
On the soaking feet subject… i recently had the lovely tedious pleasure of soaking my warmblood’s foot that he abscessed. I have NEVER had to do this before and was about as nervous as you can get thinking that i was going to have a fight on my hands to get his foot in the bucket. Much to my surprise (and great relief) he LOVED it. he would see me coming over with this feed and warm water bucket he would pick his foot up and hold it there until i got all the wraps off it… then he would take his foot and set it in the bucket. When he was done (usually when the water started to get cold about 20 or so minutes) he would lift it out and stand there with his hoof propped on the towel that we put out waiting for me to dry and pack it all over again!!!!
“1. Removing burrs.”
I use cowboy magic detanger. Either the gel kind that you rub in or the spray. They both work great and the burrs slide right out.
“2. Sheath cleaning.”
I just cleaned my boyfriend’s gelding sheath a couple of days ago though. I think he actually enjoyed it.
That’s why I own mares!
“3. Barbed wire removal.”
No barbed wire where my horses are.
“4. Soaking feet.”
My older mare will actually stand there with her foot in the bucket. When she had an abscess, I stayed with her to make sure her foot soaked for at least 20 minutes, then walked away and she stayed there. If I needed to soak my 3 year old’s foot, I’d just soak my older mare’s first so the 3 year old would get jealous and want me to soak hers, too. Who needs kids when you have horses?
“Pulling, braiding and banding!”
I think horses look much better with long manes. I enjoy braiding, so I’ll do it every once in a while, though.
I HATE removing burrs. If they are as bad as they are on the horse in the photo shown I will just roach the mane and work on the tail. One time back when I was working at my first barn as a teenager the barn owner had a horse that she brought up from the back 40 and was full of burrs. She gave me the chore to remove them. I worked for days getting those things off. That was back when there wasnt any hair treatments to get out the stupid things except showsheen. This horse had an entire burr stock in its tail and was a big stiff baseball bat looking mess. I was not a happy camper. I wont fool with it to much now. I will just roach the mane and depending on the tail and my plans will depend on how invasive I am with it. Ugh.
Sheath Cleaning is another one of my not so favorite chores but it has to be done.
Cleaning out stalls that hadnt been cleaned in a Month of Sundays. (Not my stalls, they get or got cleaned daily and picked when needed.) I went to work on a Saddlebred farm where the stalls had not been cleaned in a month. HORRID. It just added to my thoughts about the Saddlebred training, keeping and whole deal.
Removing caslix sutures from cheeky, cranky assed, old brood mares who would rather kick your head off than look at you. (of course I cant realy blame them though)
Lol, fugs, I don’t much ind your dirty chores 2, 3, 4.
Sheath cleaning is no big deal for me, I can get most of my geldings to drop, so it’s not very hard. Barbed wire is no big deal for me either. Just the other day i found that my 13 y/o mare had managed to step over a chest-high piece of barbed wire. I had no idea we had barbed wire in that stand of trees. Yup, it all came out. Good old fencing hammer (If ya’ll have not invested in one of these, they are AMAZING) and a pair of gloves. Fugs, sometimes I think you deal with razor wire, based on your description. 
And I’ve only had to soak one hores’s hoof. She gladly stood there for 20 minutes, eating hay, with her foot and ankle in a bucket of epsom salt water.
What I do NOT like doing is ceaning up the neighbors fenceline. Ugh. Large square mesh and thick, rusty barbed wire Everywhere!
Poo-picking churned, frozen pastures. Cleaning stalls filled with straw.
Deicing water troughs (the back pastures were too far away for tank heaters), I always got soaked and then my wet hands would freeze to the electrified metal gate and I’d be stuck there screaming.
Cleaning and chalking feathers on heavy horses. Hours spent on my knees on gravel/concrete for an effect that is ruined in seconds if there’s mud or dust.
Favorite chore? Using the fire hose on the arenas to keep dust down during shows. I always had to resist blasting the people that got on my nerves though.
I think my most hateful job is the day-after a show…..unpacking the truck and trailer. I know we went to the show with an organized tack area (I have a gooseneck stock trailer so no tack room, but the gooseneck part is large and holds alot), the horses well-groomed with sheets on, clean shavings, cooler packed and in the truck bed, folding camp chairs in the truck bed in their bags, show clothes clean and neatly packed in their hanging showbag, etc. By the time the show is over and we get home, the trailer is in shambles: horses with sweatmarks on them, covered in warmup ring dirt ’cause the kids let them roll at the end of the day, poop all over the shavings, the gooseneck area looking like WW III up there with everything thrown up there willy-nilly, saddles that never seem to get back into their saddle carriers, sweaty saddlepads, brushes and grooming supplies not back in their totes, camp chairs tossed in the truck bed, half-eaten sandwiches left in the cooler with melting ice, trash in the trucks back seat cause someone didn’t want to walk to the showoffice where the giant trashcan was to throw out trash, ribbons everywhere inside the truck, showclothes everywhere inside the truck, and for some reason, hay everywhere you look. Etc, etc, etc… And where in the heck did that extra pair of boots come from? I don’t remember aquiring those. Everyone, including horses, tired and cranky and ready to just go home. My truck and trailer NEVER get cleaned out the evening after a show….NEVER. Usually I have to do the Mom-yelling and threats to motivate the crew to get it done the next day. I HATE the day-after a show…..
Handy hint for soaking legs: next time you wear out a pair of jeans, cut both legs off at the crotch. Stitch the top closed. Make slits in the cuff for a drawstring and run a string/twine through the slits. Line with a trash can liner on the inside. Now you have a pair of soaking boots…
To use, place empty boot on your horse, THEN pour in the liquid. Doesn’t work well the other way at all… tie off boot, and you can also put ties lower down so it doesn’t slip off. Or cut your jeans down to the length you need, like hoof or fetlock or knee.
I made these when our stallion hung himself up by a foreleg between two gates- upside down. Wrenched his pastern pretty badly and needed soaked- in January! I’d tie him up, fix his dinner and then soak his leg. He was quite content doing it that way. Stood for the half hour he needed to.
Cheap, replacable, recycled. Doesn’t get any better’n that!!
I might be mentally ill, but I used to LOVE detangling tails, thinning and shaping manes, and braiding! Might not have been relaxing for the horse, but for some reason it was for me lol
Loved tearing down tack for cleaning but hated the actual cleaning with Lexol. Nowadays the smell of Lexol makes me ill. Polishing silver was okay though.
Didn’t like dressing hooves either; I was usually in my 4-H whites by then and always found a way to get Hoof Black on my hands, arms and pants, no matter how much protective clothing I wore!
i actually don’t mind de-burring and detangling manes and tails. there’s an orange moisturizer i use that’s also a detangler or i use baby oil mixed 50/50 with water, then use a pulling comb and can usually get a thoroughly matted tail done in under an hour and a mane in under 30 minutes. i seriously think i might start charging to go out and do other people’s horses xD
sheath cleaning is something i’d rather just pay the vet to do. usually have it done while the horse is tranqed nicely for teeth.
On burr removal… Here is a tip! Use a pair of pliers to crush the burr and break it up. The pieces are much easier to comb out after you break the burr up. When the burr is 3 dimensional, the hairs get wrapped around the burr on all surfaces. Break it up into small pieces and the hair can only get caught on 1 surface, making tangling less of a problem. Don’t put anything in the tail. It’s not needed.
Farrier work! Every once in a while I get a wild hair and pick up a rasp myself … man, that’s some tough stuff. I’m exhausted after a few rasps on one hoof. Can’t imagine the entire horse or an entire barn full of horses!
I think I may be one of the few types that enjoys braiding. Though I gotta admit, by braid 15 or so, I’m kinda over it! (And so is the horse!) Anyway, the key is to braid at least once a month even if you aren’t showing. That way you’re used to it by the time the show comes around and you’re prepared for the tedium!
http://chronicleofthehoof.blogspot.com
Sheath Cleaning: I’ve been lucky, the big geldings never had any real problems. The little shetland pony had a bad problem when he was old. After I’d washed it a couple times and apply some salve, he discovered certain – ahem – advantages. He’d see me approaching and SPROING. He could achieve – ahem – satisfaction in a few seconds. He followed me around making little Shetland grunts. Fortunately, never made an “ungentlemanly” move. Once the problem was all cleared up, required only minor cleaning. He was disappointed that I did not prolong the treatment. It was pretty funny.
A large horse is actually easier to clean because it’s easier to see everything. (Assuming the horse is cooperative.) With a pony, it’s all closer to the ground.
Barbed wire:
Since it’s nasty stuff that we don’t want anyone re-using, we walk along the fenceline with wire cutters, snipping every metre or so. That way there’s much less chance of recoil injury, and it’s easier to collect & chuck out.
I don’t mind burr picking (once saw someone use motor oil on a tail like the one in your picture and it worked great) but be careful of Cowboy Magic, my older gelding is allergic to it and rubbed out half his tail and had nasty crusty skin from it. My mare is also sensitive to it.
I also don’t mind sheath cleaning; in fact, I have a tendency to grab any horse’s wee wee that’s hanging out and clean it. My geldings rarely hang it out anymore around me. The moment one of my boys is tranq’ed for any procedure one of the first things I do is grab it and clean it. I’ve always used betadine to clean and recently one of my students who has always used the Excalibur sheath cleaner tried the betadine and couldn’t stop raving about how much easier it was and how much longer he stayed clean. What you don’t want to use is baby oil because part of what you are trying to get out of there is oil. Soap, of some type, will break up the oil so that it can then be rinsed out by water.
Here’s a funny sheath cleaning story: My freshman year of college, I learned how to clean sheaths (Equine Major – had never owned a horse) and over the Thanksgiving break, I was given the opportunity to house/horse sit at a place near the school’s barn. The owners were fine with the fact that my sister was coming out to visit me. One evening, I told my sister I had to give the horses their evening buckets and that I would be back inside quickly. Well, one of the horses was a VERY sweet older bay gelding (love my old bay men) with such a swollen sheath, he couldn’t retract all the way. Since I had just learned how to clean and eager to use my new found knowledge, I went to work cleaning him. He was a gentleman about it, but didn’t drop, so I had to reach all the way up there. As I was bent over with half my arm up and in, my sister walked out to the barn to see where I was. Being the good UC Berkeley girl that she was, she didn’t bat an eyelash as she turned away and said “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I don’t want to know. I won’t tell mom.”
What I really hate doing is cleaning feet. Especially muddy feet. I do it, but I REALLY hate it. Of course I have a bad back and shoulder so it’s painful to do but I still hate it. I think half the reason I put pads on my old geldings front feet was so that I wouldn’t have to clean half his feet, but unfortunately the mud likes to ball up in the pad and still has to be cleaned out.
I also hate cleaning buckets or water troughs unless it’s a million degrees out. I hate water and getting wet (I was a cat in a past life because there is nothing better than a warm bath) I am so happy all of my horses have troughs with automatic water floats in them so I don’t have to worry about filling buckets with the hose (I always end up dousing myself) On a related note, I HATE bathing horses. No wonder 4 out of 5 of my horses hate getting baths or hosed off (#5 is an OTTB) I think the main reason I love teaching kids is because if I have to bathe a horse (for a show or parade) I can usually find a kid eager to do so for free!
I was just thinking today that living in the snow wouldn’t be so bad if you never had to do anything (other than ski) outside. I went to college in Rhode Island and cannot imagine ever going back to working with horses when it’s freezing out. California may have it’s problems, but at least where I live, freezing is not one of them. (Of course the horrible miserable bone chilling fog can be bad too.)
Okay, I have babbled enough now. Great topic, glad I was able to wrestle the computer away from my husband long enough to catch up!