Share your Ingenious Solutions to Everyday HorseKeeping...

[divinemisselle]

I am so impressed with the group of people that frequent this message board---I know there are some creative minds out there. I'd like to start a thread where everyone can offer up their solutions that make horse keeping easier and cheaper (Is this really possible?!).

I am an avid thrift store shopper (I'm a horse owner, need I say more?). I was always frustrated trying to crush the pills I needed to medicate my horses, and trying to get them to dissolve was pointless. A while back I came across a Krupps Touch Top Coffee Mill (coffee bean grinder) for $2. It was brand new with the warranty papers still in the box. Although I thought I would be really hip and grind my coffee fresh every morning, that proved too time consuming. This little device, though, is absolutely perfect for grinding any kind of pill into oblivion! Makes them into a fine powder that I can then mix with water and make a light paste of, so that I don't end up wearing more than they're getting.

I know this isn't an epiphany to many, but it sure has made my life easier!

Do you have any suggestions the rest of us can use?

[astablehand]

Well, in case anyone happens to have a puppy that knocks over a whole can of PINE TAR on their carpet, clothing, etc. (like I just did )...
WD-40 works really well to get rid of the stain! Even after you've just spent close to 2 hours trying everything under the sun and on your hands and knees scrubbing and swearing....

[muttduck]

Well, in case your kids play with the permanent marker, rubbing alcohol helps get it off the counter!
Gotta get to it within a short period of time though.


:cat:

[ToveroMom]

you know those plastic bottles with the bristle tops to add dishwashing liquid to and scrub dishes?
If you apply hoof oil to their feet-get one of those and add your oil. Easier and tidier than trying to hit it with those dauber brushes.
Rain rot? Too cold to bathe them..Lysol spray[got that one from an Old Vet I used to have..it works]

[astablehand]

Oh! Those bristle top bottles also work well with a "whitening shampoo" for scrubbing your horse's green socks to a sparlking white!

[saudimack]

Windex cures everything 8)

no just kidding..i think? lol

anyways
i know how to make show sheen! lol!

1/4 cup water
1/4 cup hair conditioner
1/4 cup of baby oil
1/4 cup of vinegar or your fav fly spray

[muttduck]

When it comes to iron in your well water, and iron stains, I can't say enough for the product called "Kaboom!" It took the iron stains out of our shower. ( they were pretty bad, too. ) But it is all white now! Not much else phased it.

[muttduck]

I'm not sure if anyone has used any of these, but I found a great site for a bunch of homemade fly sprays...

http://www.qtm.net/~mitchj/FlySpray.html

Let me know if you have tried them, and if they work?

[stormy]

I dont know how ingenious this is but when I need to medicate a horse and they refuse to eat it in the grain, I grind it up and desolve it in water. Add alittle molasses and pour in a LARGE syringe and put as far back in horses mouth and push the plunger. Its a done deal and horse gets it all.
Also, I have a horse thats bolts his grain and takes such mouthfuls that he drops it all over Wasting lots. I had tried every type of feeder known to mankind Solved the problem with a grain bag and now he dosnt waste a drop. And yes, I had his teeth floated 3 different times by 3 different doctors so that wasnt the problem. HE'S A PIG!!!
Have another idea for detangling manes and tails from burrs or whatever. Baby Oil Works wonders! Stormy

[jkl]

Great Topic ... Excellent tips.

I was trying to think of anything shortcuts we have learned ...
I do massage Vaseline into base/top of mane and tails during winter
so when you comb down it conditions it .. but probably nothing new.

We do have one horse that 'does her business' in her fee bucket
(after she has eaten, of-course). I have bought her a bigger feed bucket and am trying to encourage her to train the others!

Meemaw

[stormy]

I have a homemade recipe for bug spray and it works:

4 oz head lice shampoo
1 gal. white vinegar
1/4 cup baby oil
1/2 cup skin-so-soft (Avon)

Also can use Metamucil in place of sand clear (Generic works well too)

Stormy

[stormy]

Sorry guys, I forgot to add that you use 1 scoop,

2 days in a row and once a month of the metamucil

Also, do you know how to tell if your horse is injesting sand in their bellies? Hey, this could be a trivia question

[my_bubbles]

hee hee I have invented an anti-chew. It works miracles if I do say so myself. I have the whole thing measured out and written down. I put it on the stalls and they dont chew in that spot again. I also put it on a cribbers stall(he wasnt an avid cribber) and he stopped. I cant say that it would work on cribbers of years, but it worked on him!
I also made this little fly net for my horses head. it attches to the browband, and is made of twine. it took me about 10 mins to make it. You take a string of twine and fold it in half, it goes on the halter like a browband if a bridle. You then tie little peices of twine to that. it hangs over the horses head like a hoola skirt! It works as long as the horse doesnt mind looking like a fool

[muttduck]

OOOO OOOO OOOO

Fleas in the yard???

Get Original Pine, Pine Sol (name brand, not generic) put into a 'Miracle Grow Sprayer' and attach to the hose, spray your yard til it FOAMS. Do again in 7 days, then every 30 days during flea season... (Which is all year in FL. )

[Rocking Horse]

Here's 1 for all of us who like out horses tails silky smooth and tangle free.

Infusium 23 leave-in treatment ;

Put some in a spray bottle and spray on your horses tail, leave on for the day. While your horse swishes his tail all day the tangles will work themselves out. You can comb right thru the tail. The horse does all the work.
You really have to saturate the tail.
Plus for aboput a week the tail will stay silky smooth !!
Yes, that stuff is expensive, but it does work.

Karen

[-horsie-gurl-89-]

wd-40 works well for spraying in manes to be able to brush it out!!....lol

also pam(cooking spray) works well to shine the mane and tail!!

[serendipity]

vaseline works well to keep snow out of hooves when riding! keeps 'em moisterized too!

[muttduck]

I have really missed this topic, and there are a lot of new faces who have probably not had a chance to read or reply to it, so I am bringing it back up and reopening it.

Share your ingenious solutions, guys!

[drgnm5]

Ok mine aren't all that uncommon but I just have to put them on here.

For excessively matted tails and manes or ones that have so many burrs they are one solid piece I used vegetable oil. It is inexpensive and works like a charm.

Fingernail polish remover will take hoof polish and the white spray paint for socks/stockings at show off your hands. I used the kind in the jar that has the little stick dauber in it.

You bathed your horse the night before the show and he/she managed to roll in the poo in the stall, you are running short on time...(gray horses always do this) brush your horse and take a cloth with rubbing alcohol and wipe in the direction of the hair. It will take the stain right off. (works for grass too)

Generic hair gel works great for smoothing out manes and holding them to one side without making it clumpy or greasy looking.

Those ladies eyebrow shavers (razorblade on a stick) work awesome for trimming whiskers on muzzles when your horse won't tolerate the vibrations of the clippers.

Johnson's no more tears baby shampoo works great for washing your horses head. No need to worry about it getting in their eyes and it rinses off easily and leaves no residue. You can also get the kind with conditioner right in it so that gives you shine and softness as well.

Johnson's no more tangles works well on manes and tails and is half the price of "mane and tail". It also doesn't leave the hair so slick so once you get it detangled you can braid or pasture band without your bands sliding out.

for hard to worm horses put 1/8th cup to 1/4 cup (depending on weight) Permaguard daily dewormer in their grain. It looks just like babypowder and mixes right into the grain. No more fighting with your horse and they don't even know they are getting wormed!

I guess that's all my ideas that work for me.

Heather

[mandelyn82]

I drink Folgers coffee by the pot, and keep all of the nifty plastic conatiners with the lid. I used them for everything from feed holders (when I was out of town for a weekend I measured out his morning and evening feed, and marked each can for the person feeding him) to home made fly traps. I cut off the top of a gallon milk jug, and after filling the coffee can half full of honey water and some sugar, taped the milk jog top onto the coffee can and stuck a few strategically around the barn. It worked as well as the $6 bags you can hang. It got bees, flys, mosquitos, everything. Just make sure you put a new one out every week or so, they stink after the first 500 bugs. I'd put nails, screws, small tack pieces, treats, anything small in those coffee cans. With the lids on you can stack stuff on the top shelf in a tack room. I used the Country Crock butter containers for medical supplies I bought in bulk.

I had gotten a hold of some single use benodine (sp?) first aid solution. They came in indivual wrappers, and were in pre-soaked sponges. Really good for small cuts and stuff. I would use a leg wrap or something to keep it on the leg for the necessary time, instead of standing there bent over trying to hold it in place.

5 gallon buckets for water in the stall, usually two is enough for most horses, some need three. If you hang them, they'll bend, and the handle might come off. And those huge laundry buckets for outdoor waters, they're like 50 gallons or something, and you can clean them easy. (I got mine at target)(they may have been intended for toys or something) The only problem is they aren't heated, so in winter you have to dump the ice. But it's easy with the rope handles on the sides.

A few of us wanted to try barrel racing, but we didn't have any barrels, so we took plastic garbage cans ($5 a piece) and flipped them upside down. We left them in the arena, and the loose horses during stall cleaning time would roll them around and play with them too. For pole bending we bought 1 gallon plastic flower pots, some PVC pipes cut in half, and used concrete to set the poles in the flower pots. Make sure you do it on grass, the concrete can stick to whatever is under the pots when a little sneaks out of the holes in the bottom. Or you can put duck tape over the holes. We figured that out after filling 2 pots. hahaha After awhile when it's dry the pots fall off if you move it around a lot, but the concrete base is small enough that we never had an issue with horses tripping on it.

Feed bags for garbage cans (hay strings, hair clippings, floor sweepings, other dry things.... we kept one actual can for wet things or leftover food to keep the mice out and flys away)

Big hoof clippings as dog chew toys! ( the barn dogs always hung around by the farrier, so we started saving the bigger clippings for them)

We made jumps by building 2x4 stands, and drilling holes to put pegs in to hold up PVC pipes. Make sure the pegs are at an angle, so that the poles don't roll off on their own, but not so steep that they don't fall at all when a horse knocks into it. We painted stripes on the pipes to add some color, and put fake flowers on the bottom to imitate a brush fence. For a "water" spread jump we used a blue tarp with more PVC pipes to hold it down along the edges. We didn't put a pipe on the landing edge for safety, and we started with it folded in half so that is was like 3 feet or so to get the horses used to it, then started opening if farther to get more of a spread. For solid jumps we took the plastic garbage cans from the barrel racing and turned them on their side and put them end to end, we dug out a shallow dip to set them in, to reduce the height and keep them in place. Needless to say these horses learned to jump anything. We looked on the internet to get beginner show jump placements, so that we had it set up right for correct strides and patterns and stuff.

We used viniger and water, half and half I think , as fly spray.

We found a website detailing how to make our own rope halters, went to Lowes, and bought the rope for it. You need a loose and floppy thin type of rope, clothes line is too stiff. We got thicker rope to make matching lunges lines, our local tack store sold the quick release snaps and stuff for like $1 each.

A fresh green honey-suckle branch for a crop. It works in a pinch if you have it growing near the round pen. It's sturdy and bendy enough for one time use. It's not good anymore after it dries out. You can use it for roasting marshmellows after that. hahaha If you break it on your horse, you need to revisit your training technique... you obviously need to find out why your horse won't go when you're carryling a crop. I used it just so that horse knew I had something....I never actually used it on the horse. Obviously the horse I was riding was dependant on the crop, and it needed to know you were "packing heat".

Our home made lunge lines also were the right length to use for tie outs on camping trips. We would put a snap on the other end too, so that they could snap to the O-rings provided on the posts. It came in handy having the quick release snap on there when a young horse paniced over something and we had to get him loose quick. If the rope had been just tied, we wouldn't have been able to get him loose because of how much he was pulling on it. When there weren't any O-rings to snap to, we would tie a rope around a tree, and attach an O-ring to that.

A thick dog choker chain can be used to put a chain on a lead rope., use a double-ended snap for the free end, and snap the lead on the other end of the chain.

wooden pallets to keep hay and grain bags off the ground.

5 gallon buckets as saddle racks. Find a 2x8 board, screw some holes through it, 3 per bucket in a triangle shape, then bolt the buckets to the board. Then find a place to securely hang the board to the wall. It's really hard to try to nail the bucket to the wall, and it isn't that sturdy. You then put your saddle on the bucket, and brushes or whatever can go inside the bucket, and you can hang the halter or bridle on the bucket handle.

When I was boarding I had enough space above the stall for 10 bales of hay, but I had a friend to store additional hay at. Check and see if anyone has a dry place to store hay for you so that you can buy in bulk. I was able to buy in season when it was cheaper and get enough to last until the next cutting, or until the following spring. So I got it at $3.50 a bale, instead of paying $6 before the seaons first cut for last years hay. If I had extra, I could sell it for double what I payed when people started running out.

Sometimes it's cheaper to buy a used saddle and have it professionally repaired instead of buying a new one. Some one gave me a nice, but old western trail saddle. All it needed was new fleecing. Just make sure the tree is still good. Also, if you ride horses that are different shapes, look into the new treeeless saddles, they fit horses well and are interchangable. However, too much time on a single horse, the saddle will take the shape of that horse, and it may not fit another one so well until after a few times of just riding the new horse. But it beats having 3 different saddles for 5 different horses, when you can just use the one.

For english riding they are making saddles with interhangeable gullets. That Bates Isabella Dressage saddle comes with 6, and more are available, so that you can fit a number of horses with one saddle.

Ok, that's all I can remember. Oh, fast temporary tack repair... hay strings and duck tape!!!