Best way to hang horse blankets

[ParadoxFarm]

I’m looking for ideas on how to hang horse blankets. I don’t have the room to have them on stalls doors. Currently I have an area where I have hooks, but the hooks are bending and the blankets are falling down. I need a better way. I do like the commercial blanket holding racks, but they seem expensive. I have three horses, so three winter turnout blankets, three sheets, several coolers and fly sheets. The coolers and fly sheets I fold, but I do need to hang the coolers to dry.

Any ideas? How do you hang your blankets?

[bdj]

I have one of these for wet turnouts: http://www.sstack.com/stable_stable-organizers_horse-blanket-saddle-pad-racks/easy-up-mini-swing-arm-rack/
It comes with 4 arms, but has space to have 6, if you wanted to buy extra arms.
The only challenging part about it is that I have to stand on a step-stool to reach the blankets if I want them hanging high enough to stay off the ground!

[Sweetums_Mom]

I have mine on cheap hooks that are hooked over the 2x4 on the inside of the wall at the top. I close the front of the blanket and put that on the hook. As BDJ said, the downside is that I need a step stool to sometimes unhook the blankets. I really only use this to hang the blankets I’m not using at the time.

[SuckerForHorses]

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-Heavy-Duty-Padded-Arm-Hanger-18042/202305548

These. I clip the chest of the blanket closed (or just pull them off over their heads like a closed front blanket) and the chest part of the blanket goes over this hanger. You could hang several like this on 1 hanger arm.

[moving_to_dc]

http://www.sstack.com/stable_stable-organizers_horse-blanket-saddle-pad-racks/easy-up-swing-out-blanket-bar/

The barn I work at has 12 of these racks… They have survived 3 years of abuse and have supported soaking wet size 87 heavyweight blankets without collapsing - BUT! I DID NOT install them with the cheap screws they came with, I took one to Lowe’s and found the largest diameter 2" lag screw that would fit thru the predrilled holes. All 12 are mounted on a 2x10 header in the barn, that is ~8’ off the ground. I have found that if I close the front of the blankets, and stand under the bar I want to hang the blanket on, I can “fling” the chest of the blanket up into the air and it will “float” down onto the bar. Saves me from having to drag a step stool around. I can usually flop them back off, too, without using a step stool. You DO have to make sure the blankets hang all the way to the “back” of the arm, flush with the wall. You will bend the arm if you try to support all the weight way out at the front of the arms. (A lesson kid bent one of the arms by leaving a blanket dangling over the end…)

Are they worth it? I dunno. I think you could accomplish the same thing using the hangers from Home Depot that SuckerForHorses linked… All you really need is something sturdy enough to support the weight of the blanket, with enough depth to hold the chest portion of the blanket. We never use the full 40" of the arms, only the 18" or so closest to the wall.

[Xanthoria]

Our barn has super tall ceilings and I tried to get the BO to make a pulley system so we could get wet blankets way up high overhead in the warmer air there to dry totally out of the way.

Unfortunately it was made with pulleys and rope that were the wrong diameter, end parts not heavy enough to function as counter weights, and it gets stuck all the time, so nobody uses it. But I grew up with a well engineered versions for clothes drying and it was brilliant - someone needs to make this for horses as they can be hung up over the spine and dry really quickly.

https://cdn2.ahalife.com/assets/compressed-images/119001119006-original.jpg