I’ve just had a lovely afternoon saving myself a fortune with my horse rugs.
I thought my rugs needed waterproofing, but hrrrhmmm… it was just my high play drive horses, biting at each other in play, putting multiple tiny holes in the rug that made it leak like a sieve when it rained heavy enough.
So I sat there this afternoon, with a needle and thread pinched from the feed bags because I didn’t have anything other thread heavy enough, putting a few stitches into each tiny hole – THEN – here’s the important bit – I rubbed some beeswax (in this case from a candle) into the stitches so that THEY were waterproof too.
And then I rubbed beeswax along all those scrape marks where the beggars hadn’t actually torn the fabric, but HAD compromised the water proofing as they pulled on the rug.
When I used the beeswax candle on the stitches, I melted it a little with a match so that the wax really got into the stitches and when I was rubbing it into the scrape marks, I just rubbed it in cold. I could visibly see the wax being rubbed into the fabric when it was cold, but the stitches felt like they needed to really get into every nook and cranny of the stitching.
And voila! I now have three perfectly good waterproof rugs again. Given that these were high quality rugs when new, I reckon I saved myself about ahhh… maybe $700 to $800 dollars?
Now here’s a neat little trick that stopped my boys from chewing on and wrecking Oliver’s beautiful new rug – at 6’9″long, with a detachable combo neck and the latest and beautest in rug technology, it cost an arm and a leg.
I made up a jar of cooking oil and tabasco sauce. I made it a seriously hot mixture and then I painted it all over his rug. Then I went out and showed all the horses what I done, communicating very clearly “stay away from this rug, cos’ it bites!” And it worked – not a mark on his lovely new rug.
I detached the neck and only use it in the foulest weather, because Oliver has a high play drive and I still want him to be able to play the bitey game without gives anyone a hot mouth!
Horse rugs are the very first thing that should be taken care of by the horse owners and a horse rug which is waterproof would be simply awesome for your horse!
Yes Grace – in this case another horse had bitten the rug in play and wrecked the waterproofing. A rug that leaks like a sieve is worse than no rug at all, hey?