...bathtime...

...a Spring-clean...

In Essex at the weekend, sunday afternoon, when normal people were either napping, in the pub or walking the dog - 

I had the mad idea to bath the boys.  

Tom and Henry have been at the health spa since October, mud baths everyday and cold showers, an intense beauty regime i'm sure you'll agree.   

But whilst these treatments are good for the skin, hair and nails, they leave a lasting 'earthy' residue on by would-be shiny boys coats.

So, hose, wellies,  shampoo and a great deal of foam and much soaking later, they were bay once more!

 ...and what better way to dry off than to nap with a haynet in the sunshine?  perfect xxx

Special Edition: Getting Wet

GETTING WET&CLEAN:

 
What better way to relieve boredom for 'hot and bothered by flies' horses, than to get the hose out, attach a gentle sprinkler end, grab the shampoo and get everyone absolutely soaking wet!

Including myself.

Remember Shelley's first Law of Grub Transferance: Grub is neither lost nor created, merely transfered from horse to his butler...ME!

So, after all the scratching and rubbing from those pesky midges and biting mosquito's, I can give some fleeting relief to those boys with some medicated horse shampoo and a complete soaking.  I can wet them all, but I do their heads by hand, never a hose and never shampoo, just incase it's gets in their eyes.

I use a special tentacle covered sponge (noodle sponge BUT not a pink one!), and add the shampoo to the water, never directly onto the horse, it would take forever to completely rinse out any soap added to their coats directly, and I absolutely MUST get all the suds out, it's better for their skin that way.

I rub the coats all over with the soapy sponge including their manes and sheath area,  their tails I do separately because they often need a good scrub.

Then I hose them off very very carefully, I make certain all the soap is out of their coats and away from their skin.  And their coats will be shiny and clean.

 
I sweat scrape the most of the water off their bodies then leave them standing in the sunshine whilst I towel them off.  I wipe over their faces and around their ears with the rinsed sponge and wipe their eyes and nose with just clean water and a flannel.

I brush through their manes and tails with a hairbrush being careful not to break any hairs,  then I go over their already drying bodies with a very soft brush I bought specially for their faces.

An hour later, the boys are clean and no longer worried by the flies,  they smell gorgeous and clean and they shine very brightly.

Henry's mud fever is almost completely gone, and since all I have been doing is applying creams and scrubs to the area since he got it, it felt very nice to wash the area completely of any residue.  The pastern is now clean and healthy looking.

Tom loves his chest washed, the little midges queue up to bite him there and it must be a relief to finally get rid of them, if only for a short time.

The boys have a great time, and then the go out and roll, and that's when all the pleasured grunting begins, then there's squealing and usually galloping too.

Special Edition: Mud fever Update: Part Six

HENRY'S PASTERN UPDATE:
...forgive the narrative but...bloody mud fever!!!

Nearly 2 weeks has passed since the vet came out to help Henry with his mud fever. 

 

Today, is the third day in a row without any treatment to his pastern, no powders or potions, creams or balms. 

 

But today was hot, so I bathed the boys, and that included Henry's afflicted area.

 

 

 

I gently washed the area with a tiny bit of Hibiscrub but didn't rub or pick the area at all.  Just rinsed thoroughly and dried it properly with blue roll.

 

As you can see, the area is clean a little pink, and Henry seems fine with me touching it now.

 

So glad Henry is OK, mud fever is nasty.

There is a story of Henry's mud fever you can chart from this blog to help you fight your own outbreak should your horse have the bad luck of getting it.  You can see what steps I have taken and clearly see how Henry has responded to treatment with excellent and clear photos by J C Brown (official blog photographer, and husband).  I have numbered the parts too to help track Henry's progress.  I wish someone had done this for me so I'd have felt the journey we were on was not a solitary one.

good luck!