My Horse is a Nightmare to Pull mane

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Has anyone good any good methods for mane pulling on a very naughty horse?

Last time it took me about 4 hours and he had to be heavily sedated (££££££)
So i was thinking of cutting it, but would i do the back comb and then cut the scraggly bits or do I just hog it with kitchen scissors! Long Manes do my nut on TB's!!!
 
Beans2000 said:
Has anyone good any good methods for mane pulling on a very naughty horse?

Last time it took me about 4 hours and he had to be heavily sedated (££££££)
So i was thinking of cutting it, but would i do the back comb and then cut the scraggly bits or do I just hog it with kitchen scissors! Long Manes do my nut on TB's!!!
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You can get a reasonable job done with thinning scissors, or one of those mane and tail rake things.
 
Sorry i cant really help other than to sypmathise! I had one on loan a while ago and my absolute pet hate is also yuck manes- this one i even had a job to brush its mane. the second any back combing was tried he went mental which involved leaping forward and double barreling me! My other horse eventually ate it!!! Impressivly neatly minus a bald patch but he did better than i could haha.
Ditto bove there are some very good rakes on the market and with practice ive seen good results.
 
my boy can't be pulled without sedation so I gave him a trim with kitchen scissors at the weekend :o It looked ok but I am planning to buy a mane rake for future use so am interested in responses to this
 
my boy hates having his mane pulled and will try to pin you or flatten you but loves having his forelock done so i alternate between the two to keep him relaxed :) very odd but it works for us!
 
Dottyfordylan said:
my boy hates having his mane pulled and will try to pin you or flatten you but loves having his forelock done so i alternate between the two to keep him relaxed :) very odd but it works for us!
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I love this! I do this to a horse at work, If it will tolorate me brushing his tummy he gets his forlock done ;-)
 
I can't pull roo's mane so I trim with hairdressing scissors cutting up into the bottom of the mane, then use a rake to thin the thick bits. It doesnt look too bad - plaits are a bit bristley but not really got any other options!
 
Thinning scissors & very careful trimming. But if it took 4 hrs to get it done last time its no wonder he hates it. It's best to spend 5 mins straight after they've worked & are still warm. Even if that means it takes a fortnight to finish it until he's happy to be pulled.
 
palomino_pony said:
Rake it but from underneath
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As above, I have a tricky one with a thick mane. I comb it all over to the wrong side then use a thinning tool to get plenty out, comb it back to correct side and then use thinning scissors on ends. Looks fine and perfectly plaitable.

Don't use thinning tool on top of mane lying on the right side, you will end up with a bog brush for a mane.
 
I have one like this....he flattens me against the wall if I even try to pull out one strand....I hogged him, and tbh, he looks really smart, and I don't know why I didn't do it before!!!
 
Try rubbing some oil of cloves into the roots of his mane - it numbs the skin.

Take several weeks to pull it - pulling only a few hairs at a time and pull directly upwards keeping the skin below really taut. Then keep up with keeping the mane pulled and tidy.

Use thinning scisors on the thinner areas and only pull in the thicker areas.
 
I fully sympathise as I have the same problem!

Autumn goes bonkers if you even take one hair. Solo comb is a no go as she goes ballistic as soon as you try any backcombing. When I first bought her it took a long time to even get her to let me comb it through - we can only think she has previously had a bad experience and been roughly done before!

Tried the rakes/thinning scissors and to be honest the results are ok but not if you want to have your horse plaited - they look awful!

We sedate her now. The previous two times the vet has come to do it and she has been fine although as you say it is ££. Hes given us a tube of dormosedan to try this time (which im doing later on today) so will be interesting to see how that works - he thinks sedalin is pretty useless compared to this stuff! The dormosedan came in a lot cheaper at £20 so fingers crossed it works and we wont have to tackle it again for another six months :)
 
My mare's quite fussy when it comes to mane pulling. She likes to bash her shoulder off the wall when I go to pull a bit out and throws her head up. She used to be worse but with lots of pats and praise she has improved, I sometimes pull the bits closest to her ears from the wrong side to confuse her ;) But if my horse was really really bad then I would use the method of back brushing it and then cutting the bit of mane that you would usually pull.
 
We used a cut throat razor and a mane rake to do our ponies. Cut throat razor to trim to where you want and then mane rack to thin it. Leaves a lovely finish
 
I used to have the same problem.
Now i use a solocomb. Back comb the hair like you would to pull and then just but with solocomb instead of yanking it out.
 
My mare absolutely hates it. She will do her utmost to squash you against the wall- not to hurt you but to stop you doing it she just holds you there. She never kicks or anything but if she cant stop you by holding you against a wall she fidgets something terrible. I only tried twice and now use a solo comb which she is fine with and does an okay job. She is the sweetest natured mare and an absolute superstar with everything and anything else so obviously mane pulling is really unpleasant for her and I dont see the need to force the issue. In your shoes I'd just buy a solo comb :).
 
I use a mane rake and a solo comb on our gelding that hates his mane pulled. I find that I can get it looking as good as a properly pulled mane, but that it doesn't plait as well - it has layers in it that spike out of the plait.. He is also a pain to have his teeth done, and after he put me in hospital we now sedate him! So when he is having his teeth done under sedation I pull his mane really short and fine so that it lasts me a few months - this is usually April so that it gets me through a lot of the show season!

In winter when I don't have to plait, I use the solo comb on all the horses as it looks good and is nicer for them.
 
Get someone to stand next to you and pull a few of your hairs out of your head, then a few more. Maybe you'll understand why your horse doesn't like having it's mane pulled!
 
sandy3924 said:
Get someone to stand next to you and pull a few of your hairs out of your head, then a few more. Maybe you'll understand why your horse doesn't like having it's mane pulled!
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Quite!

I can really reccomend you use one of these - Cheap as chips and you can get a really nice natural looking finish. With NO pain. It's a thinning knife FYI

Thinningknife.jpg
 
I have just spent the last 6 months with a pony with a bog brush having used a solo/mane thinning comb because he hates his mane being pulled. Never again! I now use a furminator on his mane which pulls just a few hairs out every day from the roots. For the first time in the 20 months I've had him, he has a presentable mane which I can plait. I found the best direction to use the furminator is not the normal way (ie from crest of neck downwards), but to separate some of the hair and comb from withers to ears (or the other way but being right handed this is the best for me). Then move up an inch or so and repeat. Good luck. :)
 
My TB HATES it. I've tried about half a dozen times at most, in 14 years. Tried a solocomb, looked ok until I plaited him-lots of sticking up bits! And it was a struggle doing that. Tried thinning combs too, but anything that involves back combing results in problems. I don't want to upset him any more, so I take a pair of scissors to it now, it's really thick too, which doesn't help, but I can get a reasonable result even though it's not really plaitable. When I was hunting him I used to hog it, he's chunky so it looks really smart.

He once lost a big chunk of skin off his withers, I found it in the field; the hairs go through by a good inch, so it's no wonder some object to it!
 
sandy3924 said:
Get someone to stand next to you and pull a few of your hairs out of your head, then a few more. Maybe you'll understand why your horse doesn't like having it's mane pulled!
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This. Perhaps they dislike it because it hurts!

I don't like pulling manes, so have always used sicsors, by snipping up into the hair at the very bottom when shortened, it looks more natural.
 
nikicb said:
I have just spent the last 6 months with a pony with a bog brush having used a solo/mane thinning comb because he hates his mane being pulled. Never again! I now use a furminator on his mane which pulls just a few hairs out every day from the roots. For the first time in the 20 months I've had him, he has a presentable mane which I can plait. I found the best direction to use the furminator is not the normal way (ie from crest of neck downwards), but to separate some of the hair and comb from withers to ears (or the other way but being right handed this is the best for me). Then move up an inch or so and repeat. Good luck. :)
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Which furminator do you use? Have you got the equine one or just one of the cat or dog ones? I struggle pulling my horses mane so this sounds a good idea!
 
sandy3924 said:
Get someone to stand next to you and pull a few of your hairs out of your head, then a few more. Maybe you'll understand why your horse doesn't like having it's mane pulled!
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Exactly!!

Why do people not understand that manes are there for protection, not for looking fancy? And as for hogging...!
 
Beans2000 said:
Has anyone good any good methods for mane pulling on a very naughty horse?

Last time it took me about 4 hours and he had to be heavily sedated (££££££)
So i was thinking of cutting it, but would i do the back comb and then cut the scraggly bits or do I just hog it with kitchen scissors! Long Manes do my nut on TB's!!!
Click to expand...

He isn't being NAUGHTY.

He's being HURT.

You are HURTING him.


I'm sorry if someone has already said this but it made my blood boil. Mane pulling is optional, you don't have to do it if it hurts the horse that badly, just STOP.
 
Do you need to be able to plait it? If not, then the thinning rake is easy and quick and results look good. The trouble is, if you want to plait your mane, you have a million hairs all at different legths and you end up with horribly messy looking plaits.

I've also got a solo comb, but I'd only use it if I wasn't intending to plait the mane, because again, you end up with chunks of hair all different lengths. The thinning rake is easier to use and gives a similar appearance as a solo comb.

If the mane is quite thin, you can get very nice results using scissors. I just use little upwards cuts along the bottom, to take the length off without giving the 'special' appearance that cut manes sometimes have ;)
It's no good if you have a thick bushy mane though :(


One of my horses has a thick mane and I need to be able to produce smart plaits. He's a big horse and violently hates having his mane pulled and I'm ashamed to say that I drug him and restrain him to do it :eek: ;) (2 units of sedalin, then a nose twitch on for a couple of minutes) He doesn't hold it against me, I promise!
 
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