We all realize that horse keeping takes a LOT of effort. Hopefully the following tips will help in making our daily lives just a little bit easier!
| Picking Feet | Make a Rope Halter | Dressage Markers |
| Frozen Buckets | Makeshift Half Chaps | Bucket Carrying |
| Emergency "Vet" wrap | Fly Spray | Stall Labels |
| Stall Mats |
Do you have a great tip to share? Let us know at tips@ultimate-equine.com We'll give you credit for your tip by publishing your name next to it unless you specify otherwise.
Have trouble getting a horse to pick up his feet? A great training tool is to take a piece bailing twine behind the pastern and give it a gentle tug while facing the horse's leg. Be very gentle, because the bailing twine will give just enough bite to encourage the horse to lift his leg without having to knock him off balance. This is a great way to save your back! I have a small piece tied to my hoof pick just in case.
Who can afford those beautiful vinyl dressage markers in all the catalogs? We use gallon milk jugs filled with sand and mark the letters with electrical tape.
There are three ways, other than heaters, to deal with frozen buckets.
Drop an apple in the bucket, hopefully the horse will play with it enough to keep the water circulating.
Wrap the bottom and sides with bubble wrap, this creates an insulation property. NOT RECOMMENDED FOR CRIBBERS
Invest in coolers. The insulation properties of the coolers will keep the water from freezing.
At a friend's barn and she wants you to hop on a horse for a minute but you don't have your gear with you? Don't panic, just grab some polo wraps and wrap your own legs. This will keep your jeans from riding up and will be much more comfy in the long run.
Bucket carrying can be really hard on your hands, especially in the winter. If you have buckets with thin bails, it's 100 times worse! To make easy carry handles for your buckets, take a flexible sheet of styrofoam, wrap the bail and secure with duct tape. Ahhh, much better!
If you live in an area near a large factory are you in luck! A lot of times they have conveyor belts that they have to replace. Give them a call and see if they're willing to give the old ones to you instead of paying disposal fees. You can cut them to fit your stalls because the price is oh so right!
A great recipe for fly spray that really works! Take one part white vinegar to one part Avon Skin-So-Soft. Not only will your horse stink to high heaven and be completely unattractive to flies, but his coat will be shiny too. Unfortunately this doesn't work on ticks :-(
We have tons of horses and we end up rearranging way too often for our liking! We use a strip of duck tape and a black sharpie marker to label our stalls. That way we all know which horse goes where!
Why is it the second you use the last roll of vet wrap, you really, really need it? When one of our horses slashed his leg open, we grabbed a roll of bandage cotton, but we couldn't keep enough pressure on it to stop the bleeding. Someone grabbed a roll of duct tape and a couple of wraps around the leg on top of the cotton stopped it right up. Fortunately the vet was there only twenty minutes later, but without that duct tape he would have lost a lot of blood. By the way this is for emergency use only...don't even think about using this as a permanent solution!
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