1626: Horse Blanket Woes

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Greetings, everyone.

Coach Jen here, and thanks for tuning in to Horse Tip Daily, episode 1628.

This time, it's all about horse blankets.

And Hilly to Be and Coach Jen are here together to do yet another random tiplet, or this

is more of a group of random tiplets, because it's really weird.

I like that word, tiplets.

I like making up our own words.

Yeah, it's a tiplet.

You know one of my other favorite words is Buzzle.

Oh, what's a Buzzle?

I don't know.

I have to put something behind it by just like the word.

A Buzzle.

So if there's something that you Buzzle, it's like, it's like, I don't know.

Buzzle?

You're listening out there, and you can come up with a definition for Buzzle.

Let's hear it.

Post it on our Facebook page or send me an email at halina at horseradionetwork.com.

I want to hear what you think the word Buzzle should mean.

How's that for tangent?

You say A to D.

That just rolls off a tongue of Buzzle.

I can have so many meetings.

That's fabulous.

All right.

So tiplets today.

Tiplets today.

Just wasn't defined on the Horse Radio Network shows that Coach Jen and Halina B are going

to talk about.

Here we go.

And we're doing what?

Blankets?

Today, there are blanket tiplets.

One of the things that many, many, many horse caretakers and horse owners deal with is

once you start blanketing in the winter, what do you do with the blankets when the horses

aren't wearing them?

Okay.

Okay.

You're using them.

You can't very well put them back in the trunk because you're going to put them back

on four hours or something.

You hang them on the door.

You hang them on a piece of, pieces, bail or twine.

You buy exceedingly expensive racks, things like that.

But what tends to happen, especially with a turnout blanket, is they get kind of, they

develop that armpit odor problem because they spend all of their time either on a horse

who is either sweaty or dirty or both, or rolled up in a ball and being slept on by

a kitty.

Yeah.

Yes.

Hopefully not peed on by that kitty.

Or in the case of some barns being perched on by various incendiary foul.

And one of the solutions we found worked so well for us many years ago when Glen and

I had our own farm was to hang them up by the chest buckles.

In other words, you just hang it up.

So it hangs completely straight.

It's not folded at all so that the air can circulate through a little bit, which is a fabulous

way to hang up your blankets.

But when we looked at the price of putting up 25 or 30 of those purchased from a store,

we went, oh, that's a little prohibitive because they're not cheap.

They make a bar for that that has to be very sturdy because a blanket is heavy when it hangs

like that.

Not going to work so good.

So Uber, Hubby, Glen, the geek of horse radio network fame came up with this solution.

Take a two by four and you get yourself about 18 to 24 inch section of it.

We used 18s and you buy yourself an inexpensive T hinge from the hardware store.

A T hinge is the one that the portion that screws to the door, or in this case, two by

four, is triangular in shape.

And the piece that attaches to the wall is rectangular.

Okay.

So just do a double T hinge because I just did it and yes, you probably see them.

Everywhere.

They're undoes.

They're door pages.

Couple dollars.

Yes.

And get the one that is big enough that the two by four, where you attach to the door, it's

as wide as the two by four.

Get the biggest one that will fit on your two by four if you need something sturdy.

Don't get the cutesy one with the black powder coating.

Get the galvanized one.

Okay.

The cutesy one with the black powder coating is not made of the same metal.

It will not hold up.

It'll bend.

A voice of experience right there.

Yeah.

We tried this.

Well, that's not working.

I know.

I've learned you got to go heavy duty from the beginning.

Yeah.

Don't go for fancy.

Just go for heavy duty.

If you want to get clever, you can paint the two by four.

You know.

And then hang it at an appropriate height on a nice sturdy wall.

Do not use nails.

Use either bolts if you have to bolt through it with a nut in the other end, or a good

heavy duty screw preferably with a washer too.

Okay.

So the hinge here gets attached to the wall.

The rectangular part goes on the wall.

Yes.

Okay.

And the triangle part goes on the two by four.

On the two by four.

Okay.

And which orientation does it go vertically up and down or left to right?

Well, it goes left and right because it swings like a little door.

And what works out really well here is you hang it up.

You close the chest buckles on the blanket.

You hang those chest buckles over the little bar.

And when you're finished, you push them all flat so they are still hanging, but you can

push them out of the way.

They're not sticking straight out of the wall all the time.

You pull it out, you hang it up, you push it back.

I love it.

I love it.

Now what was in your barn?

I have.

We did this in our barn when we lived in Pennsylvania.

It was wonderful.

And then to add insult to injury because we had a lot of, you know, how it is with blankets.

They all pretty much come in two colors.

So you get mixed up, who's this, who's this?

And you labeled the blanket.

But what we also did was we labeled the racks.

Oh, I love that idea.

So that when Georgina came into the barn and needed to find thunders blanket, when they're

hanging, it's hard to find the tag that's on them because usually the tag is on the chest

part.

If, you know, well, right there says thunder on the end of that thingy, right there's

thunders and I can find it more easily.

So we labeled them that way, but it was just, and you can hang them in groups, you know,

that they're all lined up together down, you know, certain aisle way or a certain area

of the barn.

Some stables the way they're set up.

It works well to put like two of them at each stall because each horse's blankets hang

next to his stall, whatever.

But it was a very efficient and very cost effective way to hang up blankets when they were

not in use and keep them as fresh as you can considering they're hanging around on a horse

that rolls and poop on a regular basis.

So how would this be?

What's the benefit of this method of hanging them versus a blanket bar attached to the

stall?

When you put them on a blanket bar, you have to fold them.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that makes them stinkier and it seals in dampness and organic matter that just want

to harvest.

Yeah.

You hit the point there.

It's kind of like you call it organic matter.

I call it Ick.

It's Ick.

Exactly.

It's it's Buzzle.

It's Buzzle.

It could be Buzzle.

It's kind of like, you know, dirty, sweaty socks.

If you pull them off your feet and they roll up in a ball and put them in the in the

laundry basket.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the most interesting trick.

Yeah.

So, so this actually lets them air out, keeps them out of the way, is affordable and and skill-wise.

You know how they say like easy, medium, difficult.

Yeah.

This sounds pretty easy.

And the recipe book.

You just easy.

You just need to use to know what materials you have.

So you want a good salad, you buy for and you know, one of the things that I'm going

to suggest in the wood that you choose for this is if you can, if you have some

polyurethane or any kind of sealant, it's a good idea to slap some of that on your wood

because the blankets are wet and the moisture will transfer into the wood.

So if you want it to last as long as it can, just seal it up.

Seal it up.

Paint it with a good, a good outdoor paint if you love colors like it.

The barnware beaker lives.

They would be painted pink.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

They would be painted.

And they have one of the things that we used in our barn is deck stain.

Awesome stuff.

That is the most sturdy, wonderful product ever to go on a paintbrush.

So it comes with more options because, you know, it's really for residential use, but

it's sturdy outdoor stuff.

So yeah, go to the deck stain and paint section.

Yes, deck stain and paint, having grown up in a very, very old home with wooden floors,

most of the floors were painted with this type of product.

And they do come in a lovely variety of colors, deck paints.

Yeah, they do.

That's a good idea.

Deck paint.

Another friend at the barn.

So this is the tea hinge solution for hanging blankets.

You betcha.

When they're not used.

Yeah.

So that's tiplet number one.

Tiplet number two.

And this one sprouted after we had a chit chat with the folks at Fred's to the rescue

blanket, horse blanket cleaning and repairing company.

Their local outfit here in Kentucky and we chit chat it with them one day on, I guess

it was horses in the morning about cleaning blankets.

Now it happens, yada, yada, yada.

So if you go search for Fred's to the rescue, you'll find that interview on horses in

the morning.

But what do you do between laundering, you can't, it's just like clothing.

The more you launder it, the faster it wears out, especially a turnout blanket.

They laundering and turnouts, you know, you don't want to do it too often.

But you get scuzzy, right?

Yes.

You get scuzzy.

Yes.

Well, vacuum them.

It's a rug, is it?

It is a rug.

Well, you're talking to the wrong person here if you want an objective opinion about

vacuuming things in the barn, because we all know by now that I do have a little OCD.

I don't know, I do, I do, I have OCD.

I do keep a vacuum cleaner in my barn when we bought, and this is a good tip for those

of you who are less anal retentive than me.

I mean, your tiplet alert, this is the bonus tip.

Actually, your tiplet alert, when you upgrade your indoor, your home vacuum cleaner, don't

just trash your old one, you know, if it doesn't work as well, retire it to your barn.

It's really great for getting dust, you know, like, especially if you use shavings,

it's great for getting dust set of those crevices and, and creaky places.

And for vacuuming your blankets.

Hmm.

Now I wouldn't recommend an upright for this.

No, no, no.

I abandoned the uprights long ago, they're just too heavy and difficult to use.

We moved to canisters and I have to suggest the Sears Kenmore canister vacuum cleaner, because

long ago when I was working and didn't have kids and two horses to take care of, I had

a little extra cash and we had a cleaning lady.

And she obviously cleaned a lot of houses and she said that the Sears Kenmore canister

vacuum cleaner was by far the best vacuum cleaner for its price range.

She said it just lasted forever, it did a great job.

And ever since then, we've been buying, you know, Sears Kenmore's and we get one like,

I don't know, every five years or so, do we need to get one every five years?

No, but again, there's that OCD.

So if it can't suck up a spider from 20 yards, it's not good enough, is it?

No.

No, I know.

I can't even say, you know what though?

I don't, I can't suck up spiders anymore.

I can't do what I feel bad, I feel even bad.

Well, here's the scoop.

I suck up enough for both of us.

Okay, that's fine.

So it all, it all evens out.

All right, so where are we?

What were we talking about?

Vacuuming Horse Blanket.

See, when the horse blankets and you flip up, flip them over to the inside, you see the,

that kind of a gray shiny, which is the coat oil in there, doesn't look dirty.

But just like your carpet, there is a lot of dander in there that you don't see.

So vacuum the inside and when it's dry, vacuum the outside as well, but it's just as important

to vacuum the inside.

I mean, you're changing your sheets for your horse.

So turn the little rascal inside out and if you use the tea hinge hanger, you can do

it while they're hanging up.

Just whip out the old shop vac or the retired home vac that you keep at your barn and give

it a quick once over every week or so and it will help those blanket stay cleaner.

It'll help your horse stay cleaner and it's a really great way to extend the freshness

level of your horse's blankets.

Yeah, and it saves you money too because then you don't have to launder them as much

because really, I don't ever, I don't get overly concerned about the crud on the outside

of the horse's blanket, but I do get concerned about the health of their skin because of

that buildup of crud underneath it.

The inside crud.

Yeah, right.

And you know what amazed me when we talked to Fred's to the rescue and I knew this previously,

but it still amazes me.

I don't know about laundering services around the rest of the world, but you pay what between

a hundred and two hundred dollars on average for a turnout blanket here in the United States.

You think that's probably good average?

Yes.

They charge eleven dollars and fifty cents to clean your horse's blanket.

Really?

I mean, you can't do that at the laundromat.

What do you mean?

Now, I don't know.

Is that a lot?

When you go to the laundromat and if you can sneak in when there's nobody around because

they don't like you washing your horse's blankets and laundromat machines, you're going

to pay at least six dollars here in Kentucky to use the machine once.

And if you've got your average dirty turnout blanket, you need to run it through at least

twice.

Holy cow, six dollars to do a load of laundry.

Well, you can only put one turnout blanket in at a time, but even if you were just washing

underwear.

Yeah.

That's what it costs in a laundromat these days.

Well, the top loaders are a little bit less.

They'll be three, like four dollars still in Kentucky.

Yeah.

Holy cow.

It's been a long time since I've had you go to a laundromat.

Obviously.

We used to have to do it.

And oh my gosh.

I hated it.

I mean, the laundry would build up.

But wow, that's what amazed me.

And the nice part is like some other, I have spoken to other laundering services and the

laundering service will develop water temperature parameters and soap parameters specifically for

the turnout blankets, because heat and soap are the enemy of waterproofing indeed.

Indeed.

Indeed.

And if they're not just right, you will take your $265 Rambo blanket and in a heartbeat,

make it not waterproof if you don't do it properly.

And I looked at the price.

I'm going to be if you're paying even $15.

Hello.

Yeah.

I am the fan.

I'm a fan of having your blankets professionally laundered.

Do you guys have a professional laundering service up there where you are?

We do.

We do.

When I was way up north of Austin, there were several.

And part of the reason why I used the service was whatever barn I was boarding in had it and

you know, it's just convenient.

But where I am now, it's a woman who, this is her business.

But what she does is she, because it's just her, she takes the blankets and whatever brand

they are.

And she knows what each blanket requires in turn, right?

Exactly.

But she also will, she'll make recommendations on how to store it when it's in use, what's

good for this blanket, what's not good for that blanket.

She obviously offers, you know, rewater proofing things, rewater proofing options.

But she'll also stitch up any holes.

Yeah.

And you wear them.

It's kind of like you should have a good relationship with your butcher and your blanket

cleaner.

Yeah.

It's, it's one of those things that you don't think is really important until you do it

once or twice and you say, wow, you know, that really saved me.

It just made it so much easier to use my blankets over the winter.

Well, what, and what's so nice too is you take them in and around here because we have

so many horses.

I think somewhere to the tune of 30,000 horses within a one hours drive of my house or house.

And a good percentage of them do wear blankets at some point during the year.

They will actually come and pick them up and deliver them for you because there are so

many.

So if you get the whole barn together, you just put them in a heap and everybody put a

tag on your blanket and then two weeks later, they all show up and they're like new.

It's wonderful.

They are like new and they're all fresh and neatly folded in a little sack.

It's wonderful.

So anyway, the tip being, you know, vacuum them in between, and here we are talking about

getting them in between, but vacuum them in between because that really does improve

the chances of your horse's coat and skin staying healthy between laundering.

And it will also extend the longevity of your blankets as a whole.

And it takes two minutes to do it.

You can use a shop back or you think it's retired house back.

Yes.

Yep.

You got it.

So that's tiplet number two.

And we have one last tiplet.

Okay.

Today's random tiplet session.

Not everybody has the ability to have racks specifically designed for holding blankets

to dry.

It's just the real world and some people don't have that option.

I remember many, many years hanging wet blankets over cross ties.

Just close the cross ties in the middle and hang the blankets over time.

Oh, yeah.

But very limited because the air circulation is only on the exterior, the inside it's

hanging over a line.

I just discovered this one last week and I'm going, wow.

There was aisle my life.

I threw beakers blanket over a string that I had pulled across the aisle way of my grooming

area.

I'm going, okay, only the outside is going to get dry here.

So I took my saddle rack.

I have a foldable saddle rack and I parked it underneath so the foldable saddle rack was

inside and it held the sides like a little pup tent so that the air got inside and outside.

It was wonderful.

And then I thought, well, you could do the same thing.

Take a stick, stuff it in there so you create a pup tent effect in the middle so that you

get air on the inside and the outside because of the winter when it's cold, it takes a long

time for these things to dry.

It does.

It does.

So you can maximize the air flow.

That's even better.

There's a, this is, now this is a variation on that theme.

What I did was where I have my cross ties in my aisle way, there is a beam that goes

across the top of my, the aisle.

And this is, this only works if you have this, this beam and it could be in your tack

room.

It could be, you know, in your aisle way.

But what I've actually done is I've hung harness hooks at the top there.

They're okay.

So they're about seven feet high or eight, whatever, 10 feet is my, ways and ways.

And there's one, two, three, four, four of them, five of them.

This is a good way to get air flow through several blankets at a time.

So what I do is I fasten the, the buckles, the chest buckles, and I hang up the really

wet blankets there.

So it allows all the water to drip down.

Good, good, good, good.

Right now, obviously you, you know, this is taking up some barn space.

But what this allows me to do is they hang up, they drip down.

I let the outside dry, or get fairly dry.

And then all I have to do is literally flip the, the grab it at the withers and give it

a tug and it flips itself inside out and it flips itself inside out.

And you, and you don't even have to unhook the buckles.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Basically just it flips itself inside out and, and therefore the air gets to the other side.

So, so your, your harness hooks where you hang them are in the center, they're not against

the wall.

No, they go across the aisle way.

So, see, this is the smart part is that when you put them on the wall, the blanket will

be hanging up against the wall, really limiting things, but by hanging them basically down

the center of the aisle or across the center of the aisle, you've really maximize the surface

area exposed to that air.

So, see, we got two tips and one right there, we got two tips and one and the good thing

is now that what makes this particular configuration really work is if your barn is set up to capture

the breezes.

So, my barn doors capture, we have a westerly breeze and when we, when, and I think most

that's because you live at the beach, no, no, no, no, no.

There is a natural breeze in most barns and I, to be honest with you, if you're, if you're

in a really old barn, your doors are probably oriented to capture that breeze.

Any, any barn built before 1950 is going to be pretty much oriented.

It's awesome though, you slide open the barn doors on a nice day and mother nature sweeps

it for you.

Exactly.

So, my, so my, my bike is a really, really wet, especially my turnout sheets, my waterproof

turnout sheets.

They dry so fast.

That's a great idea.

Put the hooks in the center.

So yet another option, we have T hinges to hang up blankets, convenient and get them

out of the way to let them air.

If you really need to maximize drying, you can put those hooks right smack in the middle

of the aisle.

And if you're, and they're high enough out of the way, so, and if you're vertically challenged,

get this.

If you're vertically challenged, use a tack cleaning hook, put a screw eye in the ceiling,

a string across the top and you can use it like a pulley, drop it down, hang it up and

pull it back up if you're vertically challenged, folks.

I actually keep a step stool in the barn with a little hole with a little hole in the,

like the handle inside, you know, in the, because I, I like to hang my hay nets up high

enough, you know, at eye level for my horses.

So I, I do keep a step stool anyway.

And it's actually extremely handy.

So you can either add that fully nested on that, so you need a hair dryer in the barn,

you need duct tape and you need a step stool.

Okay.

Yes.

We have so many tips in one day, it's, it's just astounding.

So those were the three, right, so those were the three blanket tiplets, the tea hinge,

the vacuuming and the hang to dry on a line, place saddle rack, pup tent, sweat scraper,

harness hook.

Yes.

The sweat scraper worked great.

Use a harness hook or a, or a tack cleaning hook in the ceiling if you really want to hang

them in the, in the middle, because that's what your option is.

One plus and once again, and we're going to run and let our listeners get on with their

lovely day.

Hopefully they're going to go out ride to pony.

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