It's now got to that time of year where the horses that are kept in for the winter have been turned out, and the worrying that your horse has the right rug on or if you should take the rug off has started, well it definitely has for me.
Last month I found the Horseware Ireland Turnout Guide App it's available for Android and Apple products.

This app is great because you can add in a picture of your horse, then add in their name, choose your location on the map, say the age of your horse, the breed of your horse, say how good they are with condition out of 3 options, if they are clipped or not and if it's a pony. 

After entering all of this your horse will be added, you can add more than one in. 

You then click on you horse and it tells you the weather for your area for the next 5 days and nights. The weather for it isn't 100% correct as its currently about 13C outside and full of sunshine but Legacy still has a lightweight on as there is a chilly wind where she is and she now has her full summer coat and after checking her over she wasn't warm enough for my liking without a coat. As I said this app might not be 100% correct but it gives you a good idea for what to put on your horse when you have no clue what the weather is going to do.

Some more great things about this app is that after you've uploaded a picture of your horse you can try different Rhino, Amigo & Rambo rugs on the picture to see how they fit. You can also tap on the rugs and see the different weights available in certain styles and the app will show you where you can buy them from.

Do you use this app? What do you think about it?

I thought this app was great and it needed to be shared.

 iTunes Link - Android Link - App Website

How To Save Money Washing Rugs!

Legacy is a very wet mare in her stable, actually she loves to poo everywhere too. It's a regular occurrence where she has to have all of her bed out and she's only left with banks, thankfully she has rubber matting so I don't have to give her thick beds. Although I would love to, I have learnt my lesson when it comes to buying all the bedding. Due to her being very wet, and her loving to have a lay down her stable rugs don't last long before they're needing a wash. I could leave her in the same rugs but the smell just gets too bad, and then she has poo patches all over.

If I sent her rugs off to the cleaners every time they needed to go, which is about every 2 weeks I be spending about the same in rug washing as I am in bedding.
So last winter me & my mum came up with an idea and wash the rugs our self's in the garden with a hosepipe. This idea has saved us loads of money, and it gives us a quick turnaround in the rugs.

We lay the rug out on the floor then wet it down with the hose pipe. After that we use Johnson's Baby Shampoo as the soap on the rug. I chose this as it's great for sensitive skin and the horses have never had any reactions with this. Plus it's great as you can always either stock up when it's on a deal at your local supermarket or it's never more than £3 to buy, which is cheaper than any horse shampoo or rug wash shampoo.            
To give the rug a good scrub we use an old kitchen brush, these are soft enough to not damage the rugs but will give them a good clean and lift off any poo and help remove the wee from the rug.
After I've rinsed then brushed the rug until I've felt I've done my best to get all the shampoo out, you can either turn it over and repeat on the inside of the rug (it typically goes through so no need to do the inside) or just rinse the inside to make sure you've got all of the soap out.

After that I've pile the rug up into a ball, and step on it gently to squeeze the water out, kind of like a grape squeezer. 

After you're happy with the amount of water you have managed to squeeze out it's ready to be hung out to dry.

To start off I hand the rug out across 3 plastic summer chairs until it's much lighter and the water has stopped dripping out. Depending on the shape of the rug it might be easier if you pinch areas and keep them together with a few pegs. This helps lift the rug off the floor to drip better if it's a deep rug.

After the water has stopped dripping out and it's about half way dry I pop it up onto the washing line to finish drying.

How do you save money over winter with washing rugs?