California Drought: New Barn Rule of Bucket Bathing Only Allowed

[Appsolute]

Yeah no lawn here either - zero outdoor watering (last year I had a few flowers, this year nothing). Bucket in the shower (to catch what comes out before it gets hot). Stopped washing the cars forever ago… I think laundry is my biggest water user (my household uses less than half of the area average).

Not much else I can do - and its disheartening to see communities like Palm Springs that use almost 800 gallons a day per person.

Super interesting interactive where you can see the average per person use of every CA water district:

http://www.mercurynews.com/data/ci_25059942?appSession=051634158421073&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=2&cpipage=1&CPIsortType=desc&CPIorderby=GPCD&cbCurrentPageSize=&appSession=861163415825774

[Where_sMyWhite]

[QUOTE=sorrelfilly721;8177325]
Appsolute - I forgot to add that I put in Xeriscape (no grass whatsoever in my yard)[/QUOTE]

FWIW, Xeriscape doesn’t mean no grass… it means use grass and water wisely.

It is Xeriscape, not Zeroscape :).

Coming from the state where Xeriscaping originated I did have a small lawn for my dogs. The rest of my yard was all drip lines and mulch and drought resistant plants.

[Dune]

Don’t get me started, I almost started a thread awhile back about dry arenas. NO need for shampoo, if you can simply hose off, be happy about that. We can hose off for now(no shampoo), but I’m taking notes on the “bucket method”. Thanks for the tips, this is gonna get ugly before it gets better, I’m sure. <sigh>

[sorrelfilly721]

Where’sMyWhite - not much point in Xeriscape in a drought if you’re putting in grass. Requires water.

Appsolute - What a great idea about the bucket in the shower!

[findeight]

Maybe back around 1975 or 76ish, was boarding in So Cal at a big, multi trainer/discipline equestrian center during another “unprecedented” drought. Limited or no lawn watering, no car washing etc.

Barn shut down the line to the wash racks and all but one faucet per shed row (stalls had auto waterers). We brought soaking wet towels and sponges in a 2 or 3 gallon tub with a lid from home, filled it about half up with home water with a little alcohol or witch hazel. Just rubbed the horse with those, put a dab of soap on one for socks and such. Then filled our allotted one bucket with clean water and used clean towel/sponge to rinse.

You can actually do a white tail this way too but if you keep it in a single braid it stays cleaner.might even look into a tail bag.

You are stuck with the dusty arena though. We actually trail rode or worked on any flat place we could get a couple of big circles going in. Nothing died being forced to work out of the carefully manicured footing that used to be watered twice daily.

This whole thing reminds me of something I was told when I first started…the hose is NOT a grooming tool. Matter of fact when I started, bathing was kept to a minimum, many felt it was detrimental to just turn the hose on then-we used buckets and sponges. I’m not sure it’s wrong since you can’t really check everything about the horse after it works standing 3’ away waving a hose at it for 2 minutes instead of sponging over every inch including the nooks and crannies…which actually only takes about 5 minutes of your time.

[jawa]

Growing up, my uncle was a “water nazi” in the summer. We had to do the same as others mentioned turning the water on and off when soaping/shampooing. But he went one step further (or maybe over the cliff) by requiring the plug to be kept in the tub while you showered. The water in the tub was then used to flush the toliet, with the motto of “brown flush it down, yellow let it mellow”. I hated taking showers there!! Especially after someone else and the tub water was cold!

You can be sure that we DID NOT HOSE OFF PONIES OR HORSES.

[Where_sMyWhite]

[QUOTE=sorrelfilly721;8178011]
Where’sMyWhite - not much point in Xeriscape in a drought if you’re putting in grass. Requires water.[/QUOTE]

FWIW…

Xeriscape landscapes are defined as “quality landscaping that conserves water and protects the environment.”

Practical turf areas mean turf areas whose size is suited to the intended use. Huge lawns of exotic grasses will require more maintenance and care than any other type of landscape plant. Lawns may be needed as children’s play areas, for pets, sports, or simply for the aesthetic appeal of turf which some people prefer. The maintenance needs of turf can be minimized by the shape of the area, the irrigation equipment used, and the turf type selected.

It doesn’t say “no turf”.

Reference:

http://xeriscape.sustainablesources.com/

[shakeytails]

Living east of the Mississippi, I’ve rarely needed to conserve water. But sometime in the past 20 years, I’ve discovered and prefer to bathe horses with a bucket and big car wash sponge from the dollar store. Adding the shampoo to a bucket and sponging it on uses less shampoo and works into the coat easier. It rinses out easier too. The horses also seem to prefer it to cold water running out of a hose.

I tend to use the hose for making sure all the soap is out of long tails and manes, or a really quick saddle area rinse before or after a bucket liniment bath.

[Kadenz]

In a severe water-conservation situation such as the one in California right now, bathing my horse would be absolutely the least of my concerns. Watering them, sure. Cooling down? Maybe. But bathing? Pfft.

I once SHOWED my (bay with no white) horse in a rated show without bathing him. Good grooming every day, and a rub-down with a towel on the day of, and he shone like a mirror. Why bathe? Seriously, nobody could tell.

(But mostly it happened because I was also the barn manager/head groom and we had like 15 other horses at the show…you know the adage about the cobbler’s children going barefoot…)

But all this bathing-with-soap just for everyday seems like overkill to me…and it probably feels like overkill on the horses’ skin.

[Dune]

^^I don’t think most folks bathe every day with soap, but we have become accustomed to hosing after a ride. Our temps during the summer are anywhere from 80-100 F. and our horses work HARD. They are very sweaty, itchy, flies bug them, etc. Our horses actually quite enjoy it and it’s hard for me to imagine a bucket can get the job done, but I’m open to trying it if our barn goes that far with conservation.

[Kadenz]

I get that, Dune. We get temps like that all summer here too (plus humidity!) and it does gunk them up. Obviously showers are the best thing for that, when the water’s freely available (as it thankfully is where I live).

The aforementioned horse of mine had awful, soft, shelly feet. For two years I was under strict orders from my farrier to keep his feet as dry as possible: ie, no showers for the sweat after every ride. So instead, I sponged his back and face and turned him out to dry. Once dry, I groomed the hell out of him. It’s a lot more work but you gotta do what you gotta do. Thank goodness his feet improved because grooming off the layer of tempura after he rolled in the dirt while sweaty got O-L-D.

[Appsolute]

[QUOTE=sorrelfilly721;8178011]

Appsolute - What a great idea about the bucket in the shower![/QUOTE]

You can then use that water to flush the toilet When we first did the “bucket” thing - hubby was using the water for the few flowers we had last year - but it was a pain lugging the bucket through the house etc. Filling it in the bathtub, then placing it next to the toilet is easy peasy… (and yes, if its yellow, let it mellow, if its brown, flush it down - growing up with septic tanks - that was always the rule)

[poltroon]

[QUOTE=Dune;8178264]
^^I don’t think most folks bathe every day with soap, but we have become accustomed to hosing after a ride. Our temps during the summer are anywhere from 80-100 F. and our horses work HARD. They are very sweaty, itchy, flies bug them, etc. Our horses actually quite enjoy it and it’s hard for me to imagine a bucket can get the job done, but I’m open to trying it if our barn goes that far with conservation.[/QUOTE]

The bucket actually works better because when you use a sponge, more of the water saturates the hair to the skin rather than bouncing off or getting concentrated in small lines.

As I said, I grew up doing this in the Newhall area where we routinely rode in 100+F temps, and I came to prefer the buckets even when we weren’t under restriction.

[INoMrEd]

We’ve been on restricted water use at the ranch for the past year or more. Even before that I rarely bathed my horses with soap but used the water wand for the allotted three minutes maybe once every several weeks to get more of the sweat off during our 110+ degree weather days in the summer. On days like that my horses sweat profusely just hanging out in their stalls with in/outs.

Poltroon I’m glad that you’re laughing as I am going to print out this thread and give it to my fellow boarders who are not laughing at all as they are convinced that the bucket method simply won’t work especially for washing tails.

I wasn’t as concerned as my horses are thoroughly groomed daily and the drought is something we can not control. We can only do our best to conserve water in this situation.

Mr. INoMrEd and I know how to conserve water as we frequently camped at horse trails/events using our Winnebago. We also use it for beach camping. The fresh water tank holds 60 gallons of water and we’ve made it last for up to a week! Military showers are essential for doing that. I’ve been taking those types of showers at home for the past year as well.

All of these are great ideas. Thank you.

[candyappy]

@sorrelfilly721;8177227

What makes me nuts is there is NO enforcement.

Anyone up for a game of golf??

I left CA a long time ago but my family still resides in the Bay Area. Residents are on severe rationing but the golf courses are just as green as ever.

Where my aunt & mom live they were watering the landscaping with treated water which was killing everything. Finally pulled everything out and went to desert type landscaping for their senior community.

I am surprised they are allowing bucket baths even. That is still a lot of water being wasted.

[INoMrEd]

There are some boarders where I’m at who are having a very hard time with this since they have been wasting water by using the hose daily for months and of course not abiding by the prior three minute rule.

[Appsolute]

[QUOTE=candyappy;8178500]
Anyone up for a game of golf??

I left CA a long time ago but my family still resides in the Bay Area. Residents are on severe rationing but the golf courses are just as green as ever.

Where my aunt & mom live they were watering the landscaping with treated water which was killing everything. Finally pulled everything out and went to desert type landscaping for their senior community.

I am surprised they are allowing bucket baths even. That is still a lot of water being wasted.[/QUOTE]

Its all relative. I “waste” 3 gallons washing my horse off… while local business waste hundreds of gallons over watering corporate parks etc.

I try VERY hard to conserve (I have to dust SO MUCH more now at my house because little dust storms kick up in the back yard, as nothing has been watered in well over a year).

But in the grand scheme - when we are still growing rice and almonds in CA, and my neighbor still has a pool - I am going to use that 3 gallons to rinse my sweaty horse.

[jawa]

Funny about the golf course reference.

A wife of a friend of my step fathers (are you following me), was a GREAT women’s golfer in the 60’s and 70’s. She came to the women’s US Open in NC this past year. After being there she visited with my step-father. My family and I came by for a quick visit. She complained about how HORRIBLE the course looked. I explained (as we had just had just gone down prior to the Men’s US Open to visit friends who lived in the area), that the course was just redone. It was done as it was originally and that it also took advantage of the lower amounts of irrigation needed. She thought it looked AWFUL and couldn’t understand WHY anyone would want to do that. SIGH!!!

Golf course can take advantage of plants that require less irrigation, but it may not be what people think a course should look like.

As an aside, those in areas that have water restrictions on a regular basis, should check with your local planning department on what types of plants/plantings are required for new commercial developments. In some areas, what the planning department requires also requires ALOT of irrigation.

[SuzieQNutter]

Washing a horse with shampoo is unnecessary and when cold gives them 24 hours to catch pneumonia as it takes away their natural grease.

You can use a water brush to brush on water out of a bucket. This can be a 1/4 of a bucket. The most important part is sweat scrapering off afterwards. You do not use the rubber side except on the bony bits on the leg. Use the plastic or metal side on the saddle, neck, rump and shoulder and the tops of the legs.

[candico]

For me, it’s not so much about being able to shampoo, but when you have one of those nose to tail sweaty rides then let them have a good roll in the deep sand turnout as a reward and they basically get up un-recognizable; that’s when I like to give a good hosing. A lot of the arena sand is a concrete/mason sand and basically you feel like they get it cemented into their coat. It does take a lot of high powered rinsing and a bit of soap does help get it to slide off faster. The coat bleaching is also a common problem as most horses here don’t live in fully covered stalls. But it is certainly doable with a vetrolin rinse and lots of scraping.

I do hate to see the groom’s blasting the horses with high powered hoses after every ride no matter what the temp which is the norm for some of the busier lesson and full service training barns. Never heard of one getting pneumonia from it though… We just never seem to get “that” cold. But hopefully, that practice will be curtailed a bit with these water restrictions, although I still see them even watering down the aisle all day at shows to keep the dust off their precious displays. I am also still surprised to visit barns with lots of leaky waterers…

Lastly, if anyone has a good method of getting that gel off from a full top line shockwave session, that would really be helpful cause that gook is a b$&@* to get out of a coat. Trying to curry it out is a definite no-no with a sensitive thoroughbred!