I have something like this, and I know it stays on sheep for a while, but does anybody know if it would wash off in the rain on a horse?
I think bell boots are the easiest and safest identifier. Especially in a bright color. Worse case they pull one off but no risk of getting caught like with a halter and it won’t sweat off or rely on someone determining whether a horse is daintier, has lighter eyes, or something else that requires subjectivity.
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Absolutely! I had a girl at a barn tell me she couldn’t catch my horse one time - she thought he was her horse. Eventually she saw the bell boots and realized it wasn’t her guy. While they are both chestnut I thought the differences were obvious. Very glad my guy wouldn’t let her catch him. lol
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I do think it makes sense to have more than one labeling system going in case some system fails.
(Random downpour and then rolling removes marking crayon, they rub their neck on something and pull out their braided in marker tag, etc.)
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I had a farrier trim a different horse, thinking it was mine. Two solid chestnuts, no white, ok fine… but their names were on giant plates on the front of their stalls, along with provided stall numbers.
Just rubber band braid the mane of one horse, or do bell boots. That plus pictures (on stalls, or on feed board) will usually do the trick.
It always amazes me how people can mistake horses they OWN - I get new staff or occasional visitors like lesson kids, but I can say I have NEVER mixed up my own horses or horses I see daily. And I own 4 nearly identical plain chestnuts, 3 of them the same breed, and all geldings 
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I can also tell you which horse is which based on just hearing them nicker, or paw the stall door. A very useless skill but impressive to visiting friends 
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Right?? I swear I can tell mine apart by smell. Also useless but a neat party trick
@phaedra1 is someone who is an actual horse person also coming to lay some eyeballs on your horses while you’re gone? Non horsie people can really easily miss things that are very apparent red flags.
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The Old Man has always smelled like chicken noodle soup. <3
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Yes, a second person will help with the chores. Between them, they are knowledgeable enough that my only concern is distinguishing between the two horses. Otherwise, they are really good at following the lists I leave. They know how to put on blankets and can tack up the horses, but they just don’t spend as much time with the horses.
I have had ten horses at once and was able to tell them apart by their neighs and hoofbeats. Sometimes I’ll hear them neigh, but if one of them doesn’t, then I know something’s wrong. One thing I have always wondered is how thoroughbred and standardbred people can tell 40 plain bays apart just by looking in the field??
At least with TB breeding farms, they don’t. They all get a halter with a nameplate and the halter stays on in the field. The grooms can recognize the long time mares by sight though, and have preferences on which one to grab to take in 
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A dear friend of mine and lifetime horsewoman has two nearly identical cobs; one just rides and the other rides and drives. Her and her sister planned a day to take the driving cob out. Turns out, they grabbed the NON driving cob. They wondered why he was a little funny that whole day, but he is now learning to be a driving cob too 
I like the spray paint idea personally. I would spray the first letter of their name (provided they are different) and call it a day. That stuff seems to last a little while. The first time my friend came back from and endurance race, I almost had a heart attack. Light gray horse that I thought was bleeding on his rump. Just red spray paint with his number for the race!
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also have a Master Binder with a page or two of each horse that correlates horse with information. If needed show what a specific feeding looks like and how it is assembled.
At our Mexican plant we color coded as much as possible then had binders for each work station with photographic instructions on how each assembly step took place. This pretty much eliminated errors/faults as few would say they did not understand the assembly processes in fear of loosing their jobs
Sounds like you’ve got a good plan in place!!
While I don’t mistake MY horse for any of the other dark bays on the property, we used to have an amazing rider who boarded at our barn and would help out with some horses when owners couldn’t make it out… and sometimes I would at a glance mistake which horse she was handling.
Her own horse was a dark bay QH/Arabian gelding. The two other horses she worked with most frequently were a dark bay warmblood mare and a dark bay OTTB gelding. Nearly all horses on property wear rambo winter blankets, so it’s not a ‘distinguishing feature’. Early mornings in the winter she would bring in the horse to be worked with and I learned very quickly to not “at a glance across the arena” call out hello to her and her horse, because chances are she didn’t have her gelding in at the moment but one of the other horses and I always felt like a dummy.
Up close and personal I’d get it right 95% of the time… the other 5% my brain defaulted to “if she’s in the barn, the horse with her must be her own” … without registering anything else such as a bright purple lead rope (mare’s) or antsy behaviour (OTTB).
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The crayon worked! It stayed on all week. One night they called me and said the list didn’t mention the horse was supposed to go back out after eating, so they left her in the stall overnight with hay and water. I couldn’t help but laugh and warn them they’d have a super grumpy mare in the morning! They said she was well-behaved, but If I had put her in she’d be angry with me
thanks for the advice and ideas!
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It is even worse with mature grays. All the white markings on head are legs are no longer distinguishable. With mine, one has the mane on the right, and one on the left.
