Water temperature for bathing

[midnight star stables]

I understand that having hot running water in a barn is a luxury. Most do not.

My question is do most bath their horses with cold or warm weather? If using cold water, I assume you'd have to wait for warmer weather/days to do your bathing?

I know I bathed with cold water at my old farm, but my horses and I have certanly been lucky with warm baths the last few years. For us, hot washing water is very much utilized as we show often and it always seems to be overcast and chilly on bath days

I was just wondering how many out there do bath in cold water? I know I have my rubber boots ready as I'll be bathing this weekend.

 

[LC Farm]

We have a portable hot water heater that I take to the barn to wash with and I also take it to shows. It is so nice to bath with warm water and the horses love it too.

 

[Sandee]

I always washed my QH in cold water but it was always in the warm weather. With these little guys needing to be clipped and the weather here being so blame cold for so long here, we purchased a Hott Wash a few years ago. This was also party because our first mini, an older gelding, would not tolerate the cold water. He put up a really big fuss so we gave in and now all of our minis are spoiled. I do occasionally HAVE to wash in cold at a show but not often.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

If we washed with cold water I would be waiting until at least June for the temperature to warm enough to do any bathing so I use warm. I do not have warm water in my barn but I do have a tap (in my basement) that I can attach a nice long hose to and get the water to a suitable location for bathing that way. I can't even imagine how unpleasant my horses would find cold water baths, and I think there's a good chance I would object to having unheated water running up my arms and soaking me too.

 

[ruffian]

We have a portable hot water heater that I take to the barn to wash with and I also take it to shows. It is so nice to bath with warm water and the horses love it too.

I saw your set up Karen, and hubby is going to do the same thing. He bought me the instant hot water tankless heater last year for Christmas, now just got to get it on the handcart. This was an awesome idea and I'm glad I saw how you did it.

I didn't vote because I would prefer warm, but until my heater is set up, it will be cold water. Hopefully will be set up before show season this summer. . . if we EVER get summer!

 

[chandab]

We don't have an outside hot tap, so I mostly bathe with cold water, but do use warm water from the house in buckets for sudsing up and shampooing. Sometimes, I do bring a bucket of warm out for the initial rinse, but do most of it with cold (so no bathing til at least June around here).

 

[midnight star stables]

I'm truly surprised by the number of people whom have warm water.

I know many locally who don't and honestly had thought it was the norm. I know I went many years with lugging warm water buckets and using cold hose water.

I'd love a vacuum for this time of year but don't see that happening for a while.

 

[Relic]

Warm only even if it's 90 out our cold water comes from the well so the longer you run it the colder it gets and it can get really cold..so we had the hot/cold taps put in and it also comes in handy for washing the trucks and dogs or my dirty feet

 

[Becky]

My vote is for warm water!

I have a heated, air conditioned groom room with a 40 gal water heater. The horses are so much better behaved when it comes to bathing if they are bathed with warm water. They really seem to enjoy it!

 

[Genie]

We have an outdoor wash rack for warm weather and have a hot water tank in the barn that feeds that outside wash rack as well as provide hot water in winter for frozen pails or any other washing in the barn.

In really cold weather and when there is a really good reason why I need to wet a horse, I use my "ANIVAC" which is like a carpet cleaner type system for animals.

Hot water and soap containers are housed in the machine (like a steam carpet cleaner) and there is a wand that shoots the water and soap into the coat and sucks it back out so the animal does feel too wet when cleaning is completed.

It works well for horses and dogs and you could likely clean a carpet with it too

 

[targetsmom]

I run a hose from the utility tub in the garage, so can mix hot and cold water. But before that, at various boarding barns with my big horse Target, I had to improvise, especially for the early May shows. One way to get warm water is to do what we do on backpacking trips - use a Sunshower, which is essentially a large plastic "bag", black on one side and clear on the other. Fill with water and lay in the sun with the clear side up. You would be AMAZED at how nice a water temperature you can get that way, after only a few hours in the sun. Cloudy days will not work as well, but you can still heat the water some.

Lacking that, I have also filled water buckets and put them in the sun to warm the water. Doesn't work as well as a Sunshower, but it does help. I HATE to wash a shivering horse, can you tell?

 

[Miniv]

Our previous barn which we built ourselves had a water heater in it and a horse wash rack area......It was great.

Now when we need to bathe a horse we do it like our dogs -- in our back yard. Our laundry room sink is just off the back yard and has a faucet that allows us to screw in a hose which we run outside. The only downside is that we really don't want to bathe outside in lousy weather, even WITH warm water.

Was just wondering.......Has anyone bathed their smaller mini in their bathtub shower with a hand-held shower head?

 

[Minimor]

We don't have warm water available at the barn. However, we do take out pails of warm water for the initial washing and first rinse. Otherwise we fill some black garbage cans with water & let them sit in the sun--that warms the water up some & makes it more pleasant when used for rinsing. We'll use cold water from the hose to rinse legs and tails. I would use cold water for body rinsing only on a very hot day--I've had horses that enjoyed a cold water rinse when the weather is very hot & humid and they're sweating while just standing in the shade.

 

[MindyLee]

We have a portable hot water heater that I take to the barn to wash with and I also take it to shows. It is so nice to bath with warm water and the horses love it too.

Oh I would love to have warm water! LC Farm, do you have pics of your set up? Love to see them!

 

[Mominis]

Shake does NOT take cold baths, ever!

Last season, we didn't have the luxury of having the portable system and didn't have a water heater at the barn, so every day (to rinse His Highness after sweating), I would haul a big cooler half full of hot water to the barn, add cold to it to make it lukewarm and then rinse him. We did the same thing at horse shows and would half fill two coolers at the hotel with hot and drag them to the showgrounds, one to bathe him and one for his hot oil treatment. At the new barn, we have heated water in the wash bay, in fact both Shake and Eli had baths today and got their manes and tails redone. This year I am bound and determined to get one of the portable systems from Schneider's before we go to our first show. I sure hope they aren't on backorder, or it will be back to the coolers again until one gets here. Nah, he's not spoiled or anything. lol

 

[Minimor]

Forgot to say--at our local show facility there is warm water wash racks, so when we're showing there we just do bath the horses there. Much easier than doing it at home, even if it does mean a rushed morning. Actually the water there is HOT unless you have 3 taps running at once

 

[Fanch]

I don't have a barn but my bathing area is close to our downstair untility tank and lucky me theres a window there too. So all I do when I want hot water to bath with is hook up a hose to the tap and bring the hose out the window.

 

[mydaddysjag]

Where I currently board they have warm water for bathing, but the wash rack is outside. We're working on getting the horses brought home this summer, and I wont have hot water in my barn, But I plan to just bring em up to the house and wash em in the driveway (we have a utility sink in the garage with hot and cold water that we have a hose attached to.)

 

[Connie P]

I hook my hose up to my laundry room tub and run it out the window, then tie my horses up at the house to my hitching post that hubby lovingly installed for me. I used to bathe in cold water, but honestly this well water is SO ice cold that I felt sorry for them having to endure that, hence the hitching post and warm water at the laundry tub. They love me much more now on bath day!

 

[Flying minis]

So what portable system do you guys use, for those that have one? I want to get one, but not sure if I should go with the electric Hott Wash or the propane one? The propane says 1.4 gallons per minute (which doesn't seem like much), but the Hott Wash doesn't say, except that it holds 4 or 8 gallons (I'd get the 8 gallon one). Suggestions?