After several months in the sand lot, two of my horses seem to be largely made of sand. I’d like to remove it. I suppose I could buy one of those horse vacuums, but they are expensive I was wondering if anyone has ever used just a regular vacuum cleaner on a horse and, if so, how well it worked? I can brush off all the surface sand, but there’s a ton of it that’s worked its way way down into their coat.
I have used both an Electrogroom and a regular shop vac with one of those horse curry combs attached to the tube. They both seemed to work equally well.
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Do you mean you just like duct taped a curry comb to the tube? Or is there an attachment you can buy?
I use a shopvac on mine.
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ShopVac for me as well. I stepped down the big short hose to a standard size 1-
1-1/4 really flexible hose 30 feet long so I can park the noisy vacuum far away and to exhaust small particulates that escape the HEPA filter to outdoors. On the hose end I use a Dr. Smith’s vavuum curry, $21.95 from ValleyVet.com.
The long flexible hose i use is a standard garage vacuum hose from Amazon for about $50. The brand is Cen-Tec and they are also available on line from Home Depot and from Lowes.
Despite having about 40 feet of hose between vacuum and horse, there is still more than adequate suction.
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I used the Dr. Smith’s curry comb too. I can’t remember where I bought it, might have been Valley Vet. It fits right on the hose. I haven’t used it in a long time, but it is a handy little tool!
Shop vac for sure. They make a canister shaped one the easily mounts on the wall.
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Do you recall the brand? I’m looking for a smaller one and tried the small handheld DeWalt (I have many of their tools and they are usually excellent) but this vacuum had minimal suction. Would like to try a different one but am weary of trial and error.
regarding Electrogroom if you run across an old one for cheap it could be a real buy as all parts are available
We got one for $100 that was at least thirty years but most likely much older. The only thing needed was to clean it up replace the inter bag and hose…ALL parts are very reasonably priced available from the manufacturer. The thing is built very well.
Sort of like a Woodford hydrant which has been around for many decades, they made these things to last
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I used to use a huge R2D2 sized shop vac on weanings and yearlings for Standardbred sale prep when I worked at a large breeder umpteen years ago.
We duct taped a curry to the hose.
As long as it sucks, its good 
We use a craftsman shop vac. Takes a bit to accustom the horse to the hose and noise. The biggest issue is static electricity that shocks the horse and person. Rubbing a dryer sheet while vacuuming helps.
