Spring cleaning with Kentucky in 5 steps

It’s almost time to take of the rugs and enjoy some sunny days in the field. But the barn life is way more enjoyable when you have a clean and tidy tack room.  In this blog we’ll tell you how to get a clean tack room and stable in 5 easy steps.

1. Next level mucking

If someone takes care of cleaning your stables, lucky you! If you muck the stables out yourself, spring is the perfect time to clean the whole stable. Start by taking everything out. To get rid of the cobwebs and dust, use a high-pressure cleaner. While you wait to let the stables dry, you can muck out the field. When the stable is completely dry you can fill it with a fresh layer of bedding and your horse’s favorite toy.

2. Do the laundry

Don’t we all just wait till august to quickly wash our rugs? And actually, it’s a lot more satisfying if you have your clean rugs lying in the rug bag, waiting for next winter. Also, other washable items like halters, fly veils, bandages and saddle pads could use a good wash. For more fragile items like fly veils and bandages we advise using a washing bag. While you’re cleaning out your stuff, it’s a good time to sort out which products you’d like to keep and which ones you can sell. With the sold products you can buy something new, like the basic velvet collection.

3. Clean your brushes

A clean horse starts with clean brushes. And cleaning your brushes is actually not that time consuming as it sounds. Try to get rid of the long and loose hairs. By doing this you will also get rid of most of the dried mud. When the biggest part of the brush is clean, it’s time to fill a bucket or the sink with warm water and soap. You can choose to let your brushes sit in the soapy water for some time or run your fingers through them to loosen up the dirt. Be careful, if you have wooden brushes don’t let them sit in the water for too long, as it could damage the wood. After washing, rinse the brushes to make sure there’s no soap left.

4. Take care of your (artificial) leather products

During winter, leather has to endure some tough conditions. To get it back to a soft and flexible material it’s best to clean and grease your leather products. When your saddle, bridle or boots are clean, you can protect it with our saddle cover, the bride bag and our boots bag to avoid scratches on the leather. If you have an artificial leather product by Kentucky Horsewear such as our girths, you don’t need to clean it with glycerin soap. To clean it you have to use our tack cleaner and spray it on the artificial leather. Then, you can just dry it with a clean towel. You don’t need to grease it afterward as our artificial leather is resistant to all kinds of weather conditions and doesn’t break or tear. If you have a girth with sheepskin, don’t forget to wash the sheepskin too. You can just put this in the washing machine at 30 degrees and it will look as good as new.

5. Prepare for fly season

Even though spring and summer are beautiful seasons, it has one big disadvantage… insects. During the spring cleaning, it’s best to check what you still need to protect your horse from flies. During riding for example, you can use a fly veil to keep the flies out of the ears of your horse. If your horse is really bugged (pun not intended) by the insects, you can try our fly mask. This mask can be used in the field and during riding as you can wear it over your bridle. If you want to protect your horse in the field, then take a look at our fly rug section.