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.
