Hi! I was just wondering how everyone stores their blankets during the non winter months? I don’t have any more room in the tack room or feed room and I don’t really want to put them in the garage or attic, but I have a couple of extra trunks I was going to stick in the barn aisle in front of each horses stall and was wondering if that would be okay to keep them in there? I live in Florida so it does get pretty humid, but maybe if I add one of those damp rid bags it’ll help? Is it about the same as keeping it in the attic or garage? Also, the trunks I have the lid has a rubber piece on the inside that helps seal it better.
I clean them, then use the vacuum storage bags that stay in a Rubbermaid container. I can fit 8 large blankets in one container using the storage bags. No issues when I was in steamy eastern NC.
Each blanket is folded and goes into a vacuum type storage bag, The air is sucked out with a vacuum cleaner leaving a rigid compressed package.
Then the bags go into storage trunks with the compressed blankets stored on end like file folders in a file drawer. That way I don’t have to unpack a trunk to retrieve the blanket that seems to always be on the bottom if I just layer them in top to bottom,
The bags I order in the XL size on Amazon. The trunks are rolling tool trunks I bought on sale years ago at Home Depot.
Each horse has its own blanket storage trunk. I am obsessed with blanketing so each horse has six blankets of different insulation amounts, plus a spare in the 50 and 100 gram weights, since these are the ones I use most frequently.
This is a genuine question. Does Florida ever get cold enough to require rugs? People travel to Florida in the winter to keep warm!
I am in Wellington and a clipped horse is cold when it dips into the 40s overnight. Especially if it is windy.
My big question for OP is what brand of trunks have a seal on the edge? My Stanley lets all the shavings dust in when the aisle is blown.
If I was an efficient horseowner, the blankets that are now sitting on my stacked hay would have been washed months ago & returned to the Rubbermaid-type tote they are stored in.
Tote sits in my barn & for years has kept blankets inside dustfree.
Alas, I am not, but this is a reminder I need to wash, fold & store blankets
We keep ours on a dedicated wall-mounted turnout rack in the barn. They get dusty, but no big deal.
I have also used a large metal trash can, which isn’t very elegant, but works just fine.
Just be sure they are thoroughly dry before placing them in a sealed environment, or you’ll be shopping for some new ones.
Back in the New Zealand canvas with fleece lining rug days we’d just stuff each one in a big Hefty trash bag, toss in a few moth balls, tie the bags closed and toss them up in the hay loft in a big pile. I do not recall mice or other pests ever getting into them .
With a well behaved horse the New Zealand rugs seemed to last years and years. Over that time it could have many different color patches , taken from donor rugs that were beyond repair. Anyone got a picture of one of these old patched rugs?
During blanket season, we keep them on our stall blanket bars or in big black garbage bags on a top shelf in the tack room. Once blanket season is over, we wash all of them, line dry at home, then put them back into original blanket bags and store in the garage on shelves.
I’ve thought about keeping them in big Rubbermaid containers instead of blanket bags, but the bags make it super easy to grab one and keep it in my car/take it to the barn.
DampRid is great, but if it spills it’s kind of greasy and messy. Idk how that might damage the waterproofing on blankets? But just something to keep in mind.
I’m in PA so much less humid than FL, but if I had the choice of keeping them in the barn all summer vs the garage, I’d choose the garage.
I agree. My rolling blanket trunks get rolled from the barn down the hill to my garage for storage.
The blanket trunks actually trade places with the stall fans, which winter-over in the garage.
Not a New Zealand, and sadly no pic, but when my custom BMB (remember them?) was on order, I was loaned a patchwork I almost hated to return.
Most of the damage was to the open front & a variety of fabrics had been used to do repairs.
Including some old plaid flannel shirts & Carhartt-type canvas.
I thought it made my grumpy TB look like a Grandad in his favorite old bathrobe
I use those huge Ziplock bags and put a couple of moth balls in there to keep the vermin out.