bathing a horse?

MissSBird

MissSBird

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Hi guys

Looking for suggestions. I'm going to a show on Saturday (showing), but last year I had real problems bathing my horse. Despite my best efforts to be quick, using nothing but warm water, sections at a time, rugs, everything I could think of she still ended up cold. She is very prone to feeling the cold so it's not really surprising.

Any suggestions for quick once overs to get rid of scurf and grease from the coat without having to take time shampooing and rinsing?

Thanks!
 
what colour is your horse?

You should never have to bath a bay (apart from white markings/legs/tail/extremely filthy) grooming should be sufficient
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lol

can you give her a really good groom, for 40 minutes, and give her a really good going over with body brush and curry comb? and then at the show/before you go give her a wipe over with a warm stable rubber to increase the shine?
That way you can also quarter so she won't feel the cold so much
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have you got a thermatex rug? if so, i'd go ahead and wash her, stick it on, maybe walk her around for a bit, give her lots of hay so she warms up from inside out, and she'll be fine. they really are brilliant. i've washed horses in freezing march (three times, to get my grey squeaky-clean once, poor girl, she was shivering from head to foot) and with thermatex she was fine 10 mins later.
 
If you rub her with a towel dipped in really hot water and wrung out it should just clean the coat and lift off grease without making her wet. use as hot a water as you can bear. Dip and wring out the towel between rubbing sections.
 
One of mine feels the cold, so I wash her from head to toe, then pop her Thermalux on, some bandages and lunge her gently for 5 - 10 mins, then tie up next to her hay bale - she won't eat from a net on the yard.
 
If you can't get hold of Slosh Wash, get Boots Baby Bath - no need to rinse so much quicker. If it's good enough for babies it must be Ok for horses; great for doing dirty heads too - no sting!
 
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If you rub her with a towel dipped in really hot water and wrung out it should just clean the coat and lift off grease without making her wet. use as hot a water as you can bear. Dip and wring out the towel between rubbing sections.

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I second this - some people even add a little bit of methylated spirit to the very hot water. You want it to be very warm and as above wring out the cloth thoroughly before wiping quite quickly across the coat.
 
Methylated spirit? Wouldn't that hurt her? it's pretty potent stuff - I happened to spill some today at work so the smell is vividly in my head.
 
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Methylated spirit? Wouldn't that hurt her? it's pretty potent stuff - I happened to spill some today at work so the smell is vividly in my head.

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Nope it works wonders!
 
I think you can also use vinegar or lemon juice in the really hot water method, anything that cuts through the grease really (think there is a post about it on a tips post in the stable yard).

I hot cloth my horse quite frequently in the summer, he is very greasy and has a thick coat and doing it regularly means I don't have to do big washes very often
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ETS I have lots of beer towels I have 'borrowed' from the pub and they are perfect for hot clothing
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If its a grey (and I mean light grey not the lucky bugger dark grey ones!) then IMO the only way is to wash properly. Mine gets really cold as soon as I even turn on the water
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but I just try to do it as quickly as possible and walk about for ages after with a cooler rug on to warm him up again. I tried washing like just his neck but the dirty water simply runs down his back etc. making him even worse!
 
Thankfully she is bay so it's not as bad as grey. Couldn't cope if she was grey.

Sounds like hot toweling is the way to go. Thankyou very much for the help! I'll give it a shot tomorrow and see what luck we have!
 
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