Well, I have been asked on many occasions how I get my tails so long. I have written several articles and decided to do a little tail demo here for everyone to read. First I will go over our list of supplies….
1. Hair Brush (may sound simple but is pretty important!)
2. Detangle-er (now this is controversial. I like to use Laser Sheen or Cowboy Magic. A lot of people use Show Sheen I don’t. Here is why, I have read where silicone can dry out and weaken hair and Show Sheen to my knowledge has silicone in it. Thus my main point being look that the ingredients in your detangles and avoid any with Silicone.)
3. Rubber Bands ( Try and get the little small ones that you use for rings. Any color and brand works for me. I tend to get white with the Haflinger’s)
4. Oil (I like to use Vegetable oil, but have used peanut, canola and soy. I have yet to see any real difference between the types.)
5. Tex Guard (there is a reason I put down a brand name. I do NOT use VET wrap or anything of the type. Vet wrap stains, sticks to hair and does not breath. Tex guard, doesn’t stain only sticks to itself and breaths. My farrier and I had a light hearted debate over the two and the only thing that vet wrap had going for it was its price, fun patterns and stretchiness. Overall Tex Guard won… in my opinion. I believe my farrier thinks he won!) The best place to find Tex Guard is sstack.com.
The first thing you do is wash the tail. I wash our tails about 4 times with shampoo, do our bluing and oxy clean to get them white and then let them soak in conditioner for at least 5 minutes if not more. Then after it is super conditioned I rinse it out and let it dry. This is very very important that you let it completely dry. This brings me back to why I do not like to use vet wrap. I have seen tails rot out due to moisture from either being wet and wrapped or from the oil. Just make sure the tail is dry I blow dry mine.
After it is dry I brush it completely out like the photo above. This is Wynter’s tail after being up for several months and I didn’t use and whiteners on it I just washed it 3 times and conditioned it. Its very yellow in my opinion. Then I take the brush and on each side on the tail up by his butt I brush to the side bring the edges in. I then brush side to side in the middle. Basically what I am doing it getting the top coat. This top layer is more important that you think. If you just shove all the hair in the wrap when you undo it and let the tail down there is a definite ‘wrap’ line. You can tell what hairs were in the wrap and what were not. This top layer is your blender, it helps blend the everything together making it look natural. It also works as a ‘mini’ tail that they LOVE during the summer. With the Haflinger they have so much that you can get that layer pretty thick and it looks like there tail is not wrapped at all. It you pull out long bits from the edges or the middle that it fine. Don’t pay much attention to the length as to the evenness. You want this layer to be even front the right to the left. For Wynter because his is so long I will have to cut about 3 inches off when we are done. The photo below shows the top layer rolled up and wrapped around its self. The point being put it up and away somewhere, that way you won’t be constantly pushing it away or accidentally getting those hairs involved with the rest of the tail.
Once the top coat is in a safe place and out of the way and secure, (use a rubber band hair tie or even a hair clip) then you braid. Every horses tail is different in thickness. With Appy’s they have very very thins tails (I’m speaking majority here) thus they can shove all that hair in one wrap and be fine. Now the longer the tails gets the more hair you are putting in that wrap. This also goes for the thick Haflinger tails. Imagine putting all that hair in one wrap. It is just way to much hair for the oil to work right and it is also pretty heavy and bulky. Thus for most of our Haflinger’s I have to use two wrap although a few are ready for three. This means instead of braiding only one brain you need to do two. For Wynter I am using two. I split the main body of his hair in half. I then braided one shown below.
After that one was braided I braided the other section of hair shown below.
After they are braided I add the oil. The point of the oil is to keep the tail hydrated while in the wrap. Don’t drench the poor things I does not need to be soaking wet. I like to pour the oil into the middle of the braid. Shown below with a red line. I go all the way down and dabble a bit at the ends as well.
Finely braided and Oiled I roll it into a sort of rectangle. Almost like a long lolly pop or swirl shape. The shape in which you roll or fold the braid into will be the final shape of the finished wrap. Wynter’s are a little longer than I would like but I had to do then this long because his tails is so thick. If I did them shorter they would have been much fatter. He really needs three wraps to have them balanced the way that I like.
After they are wrapped I place a rubber band around eth middle of it so it is easy to handle. It just keeps it in place so that it isn’t unfolding and causing your to juggle.
Now for the objective part of the whole thing. I am going to show you how I wrap the Tex Guard. Everyone will need to learn there own style. My trainer does hers quite differently. On another note each horse is also different. Some require pretty inventive ways to keep it on while others may not require so much ‘armor’. This is how I do it for the majority of our Houdini Haflinger’s. They still tend to get them out form time to time. So if you go out into the barn after only a week and find that nice white clean tail draping n the soppy mud well you know to be a little bit for creative with your wrapping next time. Don’t give up! Trust me I have been through MANY rewraps. I start just under the spot where the roll goes in and down.
I then wrap it all the way around. Note that the first it pretty tricky as it is slipping around. Also try and get it snug if you press it on loosely it will only spin around the tail. You want it to be like a vacuum seal wrap.
Once I get it looped around once I start a spiral downwards.
When you hit the end do not swoop down and around rather keep up with the spiraling. Spiral it down past the edge so that you have almost half of the wrap width hanging off the end. Here is a photo of the bottom on the tail. You can see that it is still open at the end.
Then spiral back up the wrap.
Because we started under the ‘knob’ where the roll starts you will have to wrap over that. I do it two times around just so it is thick. (Haflinger’s… you know.) Here is a photo to give you an idea of what I am talking about. A lot of people are confused on this part.
Here is a photo of it wrapped up. See how it is pressed in. There will be a bit of a bump there and that is perfectly normal.
With the wrap looking done come my interesting technique of Haflinger proofing it. I roll out the length of the tail or at least all the way to the ground and the tare or cut off the roll of Tex Guard. Thus you now have a streamer. Look Wynter is relaxing. He wasn’t quite sure why this was taking so long!
Putting my finger through the middle of the braid just above where your wrapped tail is. See photo….
I then push the streamer through this hole.
You will notice that the wrap will fold in on its self. This is the pain in the butt part. You have to flatten the top half out. Fun very fun. It should look a bit like this. This is important as you will be covering you the wrap with this giving the wrapped tail an extra layer of protection.
With the wrapped tail on its side I lay the streamer down.
I loop it around like so….
Then press.
The remaining streamer will then be back at the top. This is where you do the process over again. Do not use the same hole you put the fist one through. I like to do opposites. Think of the wrapped tail as a cube. You have four side and all four side need to have a wall of extra protection. So the second pass I move over so, that it covers the strip that I missed with the first loop. Here is a photo of the wrap with the first loop. I added a black line to that you can see the edges of where the wrap ended. You will run the extra length of streamer so that it covers that hole.
I like to make an X at the top of the tail. Here is my finger through the braid yet again this time at a different angle. Can you see how the other loop is going side to side and I am crossing over it with this loop?
Down and around yet again….
Tada! Tail is wrapped! Now because I have Haflinger’s I like to add rubber bands around the whole thing to keep it together. I just do this for more armor so to speak you don’t have to if you don’t think it is necessary. Now it the moment where you can see if you have it too thick. To thick and you will have a hard time placing the bands around without them breaking.
If you have to do two, your finished product will look like so….
Now just pull the top layer out and you are done… that is unless you have a long tail like Wynter here then you have some extra steps.
Pulling the tail straight down to the fetlocks. If it is around this area don’t cut it but if it is like Wynter I wuld suggest cutting it. Cutting it is far better than having then having them step on it and pull the whole strand out. A few inches at the end is better than 5 foot.
A trick for a natural looking tail is to cut up. I added arrows to the photo below so that you can see what I mean. If you cut straight across you are going to have a very fake manicured look that will not blend with the tail when it is down. It is also hard to get a straight cut level. Thus I cut up ensuring optimum blend.
Here we are after 3 inches of tail he has a great tail wrap and top layer.
Now that your horses tail is wrapped how long does it stay in or when do you need to wrap it? Luckily I have several horses in my barn to show you some of the indications of when you will need to re wrap the tail. First and foremost they can stay in for as long as you can leave them in with out them falling apart.
Below is one of our mares. She has had these in since June 09 and it is Jan 12 10. They do not need to be done at this time. They are fine for at least another month. Look how pretty they get! If you had to do two wraps in one tail and only one of the wraps needs to be redone, re do the whole tail do not try and do just the one section. It is just a headache and more bother than it is worth.
Here is a mare that needs her tail redone. See how the bottom of the wrap is ripped? If this is not redone there is the possibility of her catching it of an object and chopping that much of the tail off. Trust me… I know this from experience. Another thing is that once the ‘seal’ so to speak is broken, dirt and shavings like to settle inside. It can also dry out the hair.
This mare has two things going against her. First is the fact that her wrap is quite latterly falling off of her. See how it has slipped down?
On another note the same tail is super long. I love it when this happens! When we first wrap them we start the braid just below the tail bone. My thumb is on the bottom of her tail bone. Since I have wrapped her tail she has grown about four inches. This is always exciting! You can literally see how much there tails has grown since you have put it up. Most of the time the wrap will all apart before you have to check the length. Although some like this mare grow and outrageous amount of hair and you will need to watch that it does not get to long. I don’t like my wraps to hang to low. When they are low they are susceptible to being caught and ripped out by something.
My last point is when to start wrapping. Below is a photo of our yearlings tail. I don’t start wrapping tails on our Haflinger’s until they reach two or at least go to there fetlocks. My main reasoning behind this is that the foals need to learn what the tail feels like. I have had horses who kick at there tail because they have no idea what it is. This may be something that you want to remember if you have a horse who has never had a long tail. They can and may kick out at it when it is down. I had one of my mares kick at her after it was up for a long period of time. They are not used to the tickling.
Bets of luck and may your tails grow!
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