The Grooming Challenge That Is Mud

The good news is the stifling heat and insect swarms are over. The bad news is the mud is coming, and the temperatures are falling. Some ideas on tackling mud:

• Seasonal Grooming Tools My go to tools for mud removal: a metal curry (shedding ring), a pair of jelly scrubbers (one for each hand), and a long bristled flick brush. Once the mud dries I use a metal curry to scrape it from the hair of the horse's neck and body, then I'll put a jelly scrubber on each hand and rub the mud off face (smaller soft nub side) and legs (larger nub side). It is amazing how fast it goes when you can get both hands after it. Then a flick brush makes quick work of getting all the dusty remains off your horse.
  
• Tail Protection Keep that lovely tail either in a bag or a mud knot to keep the mud from turning it into a mudsicle.
• Trim Those Feathers Unless your horse's breed requires feathers to be preserved, you'll have much better luck keeping his legs clean and dry if you keep them trimmed short.
  
• Buy A Box of Rags Auto parts or home improvement stores will often have boxes of around 50 small, single layer terrycloth towels. These are affordable and are great for a million barn related chores, including scrubbing off mud. They are meant to be used and tossed, but can be washed a couple times to get more use out of them.
• Come Up With A Hot Water Source Sometimes there just really isn't a good substitute for even a small bucket of hot water. If you aren't one of the lucky few that have hot running water in the barn, try an immersion heater, or my favorite trick and old coffee pot. This was one of the coolest things anyone ever taught me. A twelve cup coffee pot can be purchased new or used quite cheaply. All you have to do is fill the resevoir with water and run it as you would if you were making coffee, but without the filter or grounds. It will heat the water hotter and faster than most immersion heaters. I've found that one full pot is ready in about 20 minutes and can be mixed half and half with cold tap water in an 8qt bucket to make just enough nice warm bath water to scrub off muddy legs. The coffee pot trick also works nicely for hot winter bran mashes.