From: Deborah
Hi Jessica,
I've been enjoying horse sense for a number of years, and I also enjoyed your book!
My horse was at pasture for a layup and wound up staying there longer due to health problems in my immediate family, then my fiancee and I bought a new house... so I basically was a "barn dropout" for about 18 months. I'm bringing my horse back soon and moving to a more affordable stable, and I'm starting to move my tack and related stuff -- and having been untouched for months, it's all in pretty nasty shape. Dust, cobwebs, and evidence of mouse droppings in at least one bucket!
I did clean and oil the tack before I abandoned it (except the Wintec saddle) and I expected my bridles would be wiped down periodically as bridles in use are at my previous facility, but they were not. Had I expected to be away so long, I would have stored things properly, but sometimes life doesn't go down the planned path!
So... my helmet is filthy and has been sitting in a tackroom at ambient temperature for a long time. It seems OK and doesn't appear to be inhabited by anything and it is less than 5 years old, so I plan to clean it up and use it, but I have some misgivings because I don't know how many times it might have been dropped....
I feel I should probably discard the shampoos, hoof dressings, etc since most of those were years old before they sat around... am I being foolish? What about supplements? Wormer? Clipper Lube? OTC meds like furacin and antibiotic cream? I plan to ask my vet about my store of prescription meds like bute, Ace and Adequan.... and I already discarded the unused feed when my horse was shipped out. I'll probably get new brushes as these seem highly unlikely to clean anything at this point.
The tack I'm assuming will all be OK with a good cleaning, but I will inspect it carefully. Is there anything else that might be in sufficiently bad shape to warrant replacement after 1-2 years of neglect? The summers here get hot (it was 111 a few weeks ago) and I've noticed plastics tend to get brittle faster than they did when I lived on the east coast... I need to be a bit more frugal than I have been in the past, but I don't want to use stuff which might be dangerous. I have girths with neoprene, plastic and elastic, rubber donut side reins, etc.
Storage is limited at the new barn, and the tack goes into garden sheds which have metal walls -- can you recommend a source for plans to build a free-standing, compact saddle rack? I need to fit a jumping saddle dressage saddle and Western saddle into a rather small space with a low cieling. I'd prefer not to drill the metal walls and bolt things up unless that's the only good option!
Deb
Dust and cobwebs make everything look terribly dirty and neglected, but can be removed fairly easily with a brush (for the tack) and soap and water (for buckets, feed pans, brushes, etc.). Don't throw out any brushes until you've had a go at cleaning them - a soak in a bucket full of soapy water, or of shampoo and water, can do wonders for plastic brushes. Soft, horsehair brushes with leather backs obviously shouldn't be put into a bucket of water, but banging out as much dust as possible and wiping off the leather with a damp cloth, then with leather conditioner, may be all you need to do to salvage those brushes. If you have a horse vacuum cleaner or a shop-vac that you can set on reverse (blow), you'll be able to blow a lot of dust out of deep crevices and clean the tooling on your Western saddle.
Time, light, and heat (especially the high heat you've mentioned) can all have effects - bad ones, usually - on equipment and supplies.
Any feed supplements and vitamins that have been sitting around for 18 months or more and subject to temperature extremes should be thrown out. Those are delicate and begin to deteriorate quickly even at moderate and constant temperatures.
Shampoos usually have about a two-year shelf life, so yours might still be good. You can always use them to wash your brushes and other grooming tools - and if your brushes are beyond saving, you can use them (and the shampoo) to clean the worst grunge (and mouse poos) out of your buckets. If the shampoos in your tack box were fancy "organic" shampoos, their shelf life would be considerably shorter, so if that's the case, it's best just to throw them out. Oh, and since you're aware that plastics can deteriorate and become brittle, you might ask yourself what would happen if one or more of your shampoo bottles were to crack or split or otherwise come apart during a move... If you take the bottles with you, pack each one in its very own plastic bag!
Your vet can advise you about de-worming pastes, or you can contact the manufacturer and ask. I've done that in the past when I discovered a hidden cache of tubes at the bottom of one of my tack trunks. Some products can tolerate high heat but not freezing; some can tolerate freezing but not high heat; some will expire within two years no matter how carefully they're kept, so it's always best to call and ask. Most manufacturers have toll-free numbers.
Fly spray, fly ointment, any product with insecticide should be thrown out - those things usually last one year, no longer. Heat and age can cause unwanted changes in their strength and effects.
If you have glycerin saddle soap in bar form, it should be fine. If you use liquid leather-cleaning and leather-conditioning products, you will probably want to get rid of them and buy new ones. At the very least, check them and notice whether they've changed. If the smell or colour or texture of any product is different from what it was when you last used it, it's a good idea to get rid of that product.
Clipper lube is very durable stuff - you can probably keep and use that (but check it, as above, for changes in smell, colour, or feel).
OTC medications: Your containers of furacin and antibiotic cream may be okay - check them as above, but also keep in mind that these (yes, even the antibiotic cream!) are lovely places for colonies of bacteria to build up, so don't even consider keeping them UNLESS they were unopened. If they were opened and used before they sat for eighteen months, go ahead and throw them out.
Prescription medications: Definitely consult with your veterinarian about these. You won't want to keep them if they've become useless, or if they've become dangerous.
Leather saddles and other leather tack: Once you've blown away most of the dust, and wiped the rest off gently with a damp cloth, you should probably give every bit of your leather tack a good going-over with a leather cleaner and a penetrating conditioner. I can highly recommend the line of products from Leather Therapy www.leathertherapy.com).
Be sure to check all of the usual tack elements to be sure that they're still strong and sound: the billet straps on your saddle, your leather girths, and your bridles (with particular attention to the places where the leather on cheekpieces and reins bends around the bit and is fastened with a hook stud or buckle).
Synthetic saddles and other synthetic tack: hose it down, use soapy water and a sponge if it needs scrubbing, let it dry.
Check your halters, lead ropes, longe lines, etc. It's unlikely that rope or nylon would deteriorate to the point of uselessness in just eighteen months, but it's possible that elderly leather halters and leads may have succumbed to the high temperatures and dried out. Clean them and use Leather Therapy, but if you still don't entirely trust them, replace them! If a single piece of SOMETHING is going to keep you in direct contact with the horse you are leading, then that SOMETHING needs to be of good quality AND STRONG. You may also find that some snaps are difficult to work, and may need a little bit of lubricant - graphite or lithium grease - to get them working smoothly again.
Helmet: REPLACE IT. As you say, you don't know how many times it has fallen. More to the point, even if it were ONE year old and had never fallen at all or even been bumped by anything, it's been in storage and subjected to high heat. Temperatures of 111 are VERY, VERY bad for helmets. High heat ruins helmets - that's why you should never store your helmet in the trunk of your car. You can buy a new ASTM/SEI approved helmet for $25 or $30, and I hope you will.
Saddle stands: It sounds as though what you want is a three-tier, freestanding saddle rack. Several manufacturers offer these and you can often find them on Ebay. If you want it to accomodate both Western and English saddles, you'll need to be sure that the between-saddle spacing is generous.
All that said, though, if the temperatures are as extreme as you say, you would be MUCH better off to keep your tack at home and carry it back and forth to the barn with you (don't store it in the trunk of the car). That saddle stand will look just fine in your living room.
I hope this helps. Do check with your vet about the meds, and check with your vet and/or the manufacturers about the deworming products if you have a lot of money invested in those tubes of paste. Everything will probably look much better as soon as you've removed the cobwebs and dust, but use your own good judgement and think in terms of being safe, not sorry.
Jessica
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