How do you winterize your horses tails

[bingo]

Do you bag, braid or? For those horses not only stalled 24/7 but those out in the elements as well.

 

[normajeanbaker]

Our show horses go out in the winter during the day and are stalled at night(however, they dont go out in bad weather). We braid our horses tails up and vetwrap them up. I undo them once a month, pick the tails out, put conditioner in, and then braid them back up and put new vetwrap on. This saves me from having to pick ice chunks out of their tails and mud as the snow starts to melt. Come spring, our horses have tails that drag on the ground and they are very full. I redo tails every 3-4 weeks in the off season and have had very good luck doing it this way.

~Jen~

 

[Leeana]

I leave my horses tails down that are outside as i think the tails being down help keep their back legs warm where there is little hair..if that makes sense. All i have in the barn right now inside is weanlings/yearling and my stalls are always clean so pointless to wrap them up

. I leave tails down

A few times threw winter i will snip the bottom of the tail off..not even an inch..just enough to take off the hard mud coverd part, then when i put the horses up in the barn that im showing i will take off about an inch or so to promote more growth and get off the yucky part. Only time my horses tails are up are the day before a show or after they are bathed.

 

[SampleMM]

I leave all my tails down as anytime I've tried to put them up in a tail bag it has been disastrous. I do brush them regularly and spray a liberal amount of Healthy Horse Hair.

 

[targetsmom]

I usually try to keep my horses as natural as possible - outside every day, and some even stay out at night. But Princess, being a mare with a white tail, has her tail braided and bagged for the winter. I may have to do the same for Ruby this winter, as she has a thin tail and is just begging to be a show horse next year. I use old knee socks for tail bags and they work great. The others will have their tails down.

 

[Katiean]

We have little mud here. I don't do anything to my horses tails for winter. In the Spring I do have a problem with keeping the tails white.

 

[Minimor]

We don't do anything special at all with tails here. Our horses are out 24/7 in all sorts of weather, and in snow, rain, mud, whatever. We don't even comb them out all that often--not at all through the winter, more the rest of the year. Most get really long & we end up trimming them to keep the horses from stepping on them--there's nothing more useless than a dragging tail, really. Most of the horses have nice full tails too. We do have plenty of white/silver tails and yes, they do get quite dirty, but they wash out just fine--we showed two palominos this summer and it took very little washing to get their tails snowy white. I have a couple horses with naturally sparse tails but a bit of volumizing gel when we want to show them works wonders.

And, my all around favorite product for combing out manes and tails...even filthy tails that haven't been combed out all winter...is Show Sheen moisturizer gel. That stuff is amazing. Just a little bit rubbed into the most tangled mane or a tangled, dirty tail and it combs right out, slick as can be. You'd think the the mane & tail had been combed out just days ago.

 

[bingo]

Thanks everyone. I cut tails so not looking for length as much as fullness. I did try something new

Take 3 strips of cloth ( I used a old pillowcase)

Seperate tail into 3 sections below the tail bone

Wrap each section with a strip so that no hair is showing

Braid all 3 sections together

These leaves enough tail for flies and is supposed to cut down on breakage I tried it on a couple will let you know how it goes.

Of course I can not leave it on in wet weather but for the time being that is not an issue.

 

[ChrystalPaths]

Now mine are just gone but each daylight savings time I cut em to the hocks. I did this to mine before they left. I hate those ice balls that drag around on em!

 

[minih]

I do nothing special to the tails, we are home from Nationals and it was our last show for the year, and we have everyone pretty much turned out. The two that had their noses razored we are keeping put up during the day out of the sun, and at night we have been having to put a blanket on (51 degrees last night) so they were stalled then. After their hair grows everyone will be turned out to be horses for the next 5 months, except for the babies we brought home. We always put the little ones up at night.