

Dear friends, thank you all for good will to help us keep our horses and their living space clean and healthy. Recently , I had a feeling that it was too much confusion related to it :) , so here it is visual presentation how it should look like. Left picture is Tess/Lucinda/Spirit , and right Infinity/Colby stall
Procedure to achieve perfect stall management:
*put grain plate at the right spot (not behind or in the middle of the stall)
* collect clean, dry hay at the designated place
* divide poops and totally wet hay, and rest, dirty but dry bedding put at the designed place (rear end of the stall)
* take dirt out (in the wheelbarrow)
* sort bedding at the right place, and with rack collect whatever left creating space like at the picture above :)
Tips:
One person is enough for this job :)
Let it be stall management of your favorite horse first thing to do when you come.
Extra helping hands always can be used for picking up poops from the field.
Leave full wheelbarrow to adults to handle.
If you follow this suggestions our horses will be healthy and happy.
For tack you use (and your favorite horse :):Cleaning Your Tack
Keeping tack clean prolongs longevity of the tack. Well conditioned, supple, clean tack is also safer than dried out dirty tack.
Recommended Supplies to Clean tack:
Soap or cleaner i.e. lexol
Glycerine Bar
Conditioner
Oil
Metal Polish (or toothpaste)
Sponges
Rags
Toothbrush
Paintbrush (to use for oiling)
Bucket or two for water and to hold your supplies (not full size buckets, but like dish detergent sized ones)
Follow this procedure if you have very dirty and very dry tack:
Wet a sponge and rub on the soap (or if you use Lexol Cleaner or something else) rub in small circles on tack until it lathers (do not get sponge too wet though). Continue rinsing sponge in clean water, and rubbing leather until clean. You may have to get clean water several times.
Take a clean sponge and water and wipe off all soap residue.(soap residue will dry out the tack) Continue rinsing the sponge until you have wiped the entire piece of tack down (remember to wring most of the water off of your sponge, you don't want it sopping wet)
Next you will oil your tack. Take a small amount of oil, and dip your brush in it. Oil the underside of your tack in thin layers. If the topside of your tack needs to be oiled, use an even smaller amount, or else you will end up with oil stains on your clothing.
If your tack is very dry and needs to be oiled several times, wait at least 3-4 hours between oilings, preferably overnight.
After you have finished oiling your tack, and have let it sit, wipe the excess oil off.
Then wet a sponge, and rub it on your glycerine bar, and then rub it on your saddle. Do NOT get your sponge wet enough to lather it, only enough so you can apply it to your tack. You can tell when you have put enough on, if it leaves a fingerprint when you touch it.
Then take a dry cloth and rub it, so your tack looks nice
Day to Day cleaning:
After you get done riding you should wipe your tack down with either just plain water, or a some glycerine. I wipe down with water first if my tack is particularly sweaty/salty. Then I wipe it down with a sponge with glycerine on it.
If your tack is somewhat dirty, use castile soap (or the like) to wipe it down. Remember you have to clean the soap off too. If the tack is dirty enough to warrant soap, it will need to be conditioned. To condition the leather, take a little bit of the oil on a rag and rub it in. Then I'll use glycerine after that.
Several notes, things to keep in mind:
When you get new tack, if it has a white skin or coating on it, rub that in. Do not clean it off.
After the initial oiling of your tack ( which may take several coatings), you should only be oiling it once every 5-6 months, if you are doing it more than that, you are either over oiling or not cleaning your tack frequently enough.
When conditioning your tack, you should at tops being doing it 2x per month, probably less if your tack was oiled well initially and has been take care of regularly after that.
What ever you do, do not over oil!! You should only oil if the leather feels dry to the touch. If you over oil, it will make the leather greasy, too soft, subject to ripping and rot the stitching out.
When doing several steps of cleaning, try not to use glycerine as the initial soap/cleaner. Glycerine is meant to seal leather pores after conditioning, if you use that first, your leather will not absorb as well, nor get as clean.
To get elastic clean, either use Shout, or toothpaste, Shout works better, but toothpaste works if you have nothing else.
Toothpaste also cleans metal well.
If you want to get your tack very clean, you must take it apart to clean it (but also keep in mind you must know how it goes back together)
Let's do it next Saturday after lessons!