Your horse deserves proper treatment and care that would prevent them from having skin irritations or even infections.
So before buying a shampoo, look at what your horse needs, especially its mane and tail. But you can also check the guide below to see what shampoo you should get to maintain your horse’s shiny and long mane.
Finding the Best Shampoo for Your Horse
Many of the aesthetic and health advantages of shampoos designed for people are also present in shampoos for horses. Let’s look at ways how to find the best shampoo for your horse.
1. Your Purpose
Ask yourself the purpose of buying the shampoo, which may be one or all of the following.
Basic Cleaning: A gentle cleanser may be suitable, especially if you do daily horse grooming or cleaning.
Treating A Medical Condition: You may be treating skin disorders such as fungal infections or trying to treat damaged hair. For skin infections, you can look for antibacterial shampoos.
But you should also check if those antibacterial shampoos can make your horse’s hair dry.
You can either check for reviews if the antibacterial shampoo can cause hair dryness on your horse or match the shampoo with a moisturizing conditioner.
If your vet has recommended or prescribed a shampoo for the horse’s skin or other medical condition, follow it for better healing progress for your horse.
For Hair Growth: However, if your horse is experiencing hair loss, ask your vet if there are any ingredients or components to avoid when buying shampoo.
Usually, commercial horse shampoos may have ingredients such as Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) or Sodium Laureth Sulfate.
Shampoos for hair growth may be effective, but they may have those ingredients that can be abrasive and irritate the horse’s skin, which may even cause hair loss or further complications.
2. Check Their Skin Sensitivity
If you think about it, horses in the wild aren’t cleansed using shampoo. But for groomed horses, you must be careful about what shampoo should be applied to them since their ingredients may not be organic or have a formula.
Check your horse’s skin sensitivity by applying the new shampoo on a small area, such as their leg, to check whether there will be a skin reaction on them or not. After 24 hours, if there’s no skin reaction, you can proceed to use the shampoo on their bath.
Also, horses have different skin types. So consider getting the most suitable shampoo for your horse.
Check the Caribu online store and look across the shampoos they offer according to your horse’s needs.
3. Color Enhancing
Depending on your horse’s hair color, you can check through particular shampoos that provide color-enhancing treatments. These shampoos may contain dyes, while some may contain optical brighteners to enhance the color and shininess of your horse’s hair.
White horses can have shampoos that contain bluing agents. When struck by natural light, this bluing agent becomes neutral and makes a whiter appearance. As for horses you want to make their hair a shade darker, you can use black shampoo.
4. Stain Removing
Whether for spot-removing or deep-cleaning, there are a variety of shampoos for stain removal, usually dry or waterless shampoos. It means you don’t need to rinse the shampoo off with water but rather wipe it out with a rug or towel.
Stain-removing shampoos are often used in the winter since it’s too chilly to bathe the horses.
Stain-removing shampoos may contain surfactants that break up the oil and dirt. At the same time, some may have conditioners with them to prevent the surfactant’s drying effects.
5. Worth The Price
The shampoo you’re looking for may depend on your horse’s skin type, hair condition, or seasons. But the cost should also exceed your expectations in providing the right hair treatment for your horse. So check for its ingredients and sizes to see if the price is reasonable.
Horse Bathing Basics
These are the essential tools you must have when bathing your horse:
- 5-10 gallon of bucket
- Large sponge
- Hose with an adjustable nozzle
- Horse shampoo and conditioner
- Wash rack
- Sweat scraper
- Towel
No To Frequent Bathing: Depending on your horse’s daily activities, you might want to consider the frequency of shampooing them. Daily shampoo for them may cause skin and hair dryness, so a once-a-week shampoo routine may be enough for the hair treatment.
Although if your horse runs through mud almost daily, giving them a shampoo treatment may be necessary daily.
Test The Waters: To engage and condition your horse in taking a bath, try gently spraying his lower legs with warm water first to get accustomed to the water, which is also a comfortable temperature for bathing.
Shampooing: The suds will do the cleaning, and you can pour the shampoo on the sponge and soak it in warm water until the suds appear.
Go with a round motion in with and against their hair. Start with their neck, front legs, back, flanks (abdomen area), sheath area, behind the elbows, and hind legs.
Rinsing: Keep the spray away from their head when trying to rinse their neck and mane. Then rinse towards their back, flanks, underside, and legs. Thoroughly rinse their back since it can leave a soap residue and may cause irritation.
Rinse the stomach thoroughly since the soap water can run down on the flanks.
Check If It’s Time To Bathe: If it’s not necessary to bathe your horse daily, you can bath them when:
- They already have loose hair and visible dirt built up
- They’re covered with mud that doesn’t easily come off with a curry
- There’s an event or occasion that they need to show up for, particularly the day before the show
- They’ve got into physical activities or exercise that have made them sweat under their tack.
Read The Label Instructions: Shampoo products may vary according to their use and formula.
Check if the shampoo needs to be diluted before using them.
Final Thoughts
Know your horse’s skin conditions, sensitivity, and type to avoid any skin irritations and complications to their skin infections, especially on the shampoo and hair products you’re using for them.
There are also effective and efficient ways and how often you should bathe your horse to provide an optimal hair care treatment.