I finally got some one lined up to clip my little wooly mammoth. As it is too cold to bathe the groom suggested I hot cloth her. I have never hot clothed before what are the best “recipes” and techniques?
- Groom your horse thoroughly.
- fill a bucket with super-hot water and add a squirt of shampoo
- Put a thick cooler on your horse, and fold it to uncover one area at a time
- Dunk a dishtowel in the water, then ring it out so its just damp
- rub horse in all directions until your arms are tired
- cover that spot and do the same on the next spot
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Personally, I don’t put any shampoo in the hot water… sometimes I will put a dash of show sheen in it but not shampoo. You do want to make sure the towel is just damp and not wet - you don’t want to totally saturate the hair, more just lift the dust and dirt off.
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Be sure to wear rubber dishwashing gloves so that your hands can tolerate the hot water while you dip and wring out.
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Thanks so much for your tips! when I googled it I kept coming up with stuff from the uk, wich is fine, but they all suggested products that i didn’t know what they were, and I assumed were not available here in the U.S.
I do as joiedevie99 says except I put in either a little Betadine solution or Nolvasan solution, to help with winter crud.
In my hot water I put a squirt of baby oil and a squirt of show sheen. Works very well!
Be sure to wring the cloth out well - think of steam cleaning your horse, rather than sponging.
Okay, due some lack of comprehension I read “How do you hot COTH a horse” Hey, I thought we are already “Hot” 
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We used to hot cloth after clipping - and added a little baby oil into the water.
Takes out the remaining dandruff and adds sheen.
I don’t use shampoo- I use half a glug of Healthy HairCare and two glugs of Vetrolin per big ol’ bucket.
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I use a tiny bit of Calm Coat in the water.
The trick is to get the water HOT, so I only fill the bucket part way, do a quarter of the horse, and then switch water. And, yes, it is more of a “steam clean” and really gets the natural oils up–make sure you rub vigorously. After the whole horse is done, I go over the coat with a soft brush.
Hot toweling really makes the coat gleam! I haven’t done it in a while, as I’ve been slacking, but it is definitely one of my fave “tricks” for adding that extra bit of shine to the coat.
Doing this!! I just ordered some Vetrolin to add to the water and bought my bucket and gloves today.
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Added photo of one of my charges. I had to use a step stool or jump into the air to groom her.
This was a very popular thing to do when I was a groom back in the early 80s. I worked at a fancy, full-care facility. The hot cloth and dry cloth ‘rubbing’ was a great tool, although it took a lot of arm muscle.
We never put anything in the water (but I think that’s a good idea). We’d have the hot, moist cloth in one hand and a dry in the other. Stroke the coat with and against the coat with the hot, moist cloth and then immediately follow with the dry cloth, only going with the coat direction. I used to sling the dry cloth over my shoulder when bending down to wring out the wet cloth.
After going over the entire horse that way, and then again with another dry cloth. Sometimes we’d follow up with a finishing brush (very soft) but a lot of times the dry cloth did the work of the finishing brush.
We’d groom each horse for over an hour, between the curry, stiff brush if needed, body brush, finishing brush and toweling, and my, how those horses gleamed.
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I use hot but not super hot water and I don’t usually put anything in it unless the horse is super cruddy, then I put in a few glugs of apple cider vinegar. I groom, then work the horse pretty heavy, then hot towel. Working them seems to get some of that deep dirt to come out. If it’s really cold, I’ll use a hair dryer as I move along.
I regularly hot towel my horses. My crockpot came with a free “mini” crockpot that I absolutely useless for cooking anything. But I’ve been using at the barn as a way to keep the towels hot and damp. I like to use a little Apple cider vinegar in the water.
Ooooo great idea! Hot damp towels in a crockpot!!
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