# Has anyone ever kept their horses tail braided and gotten negative results?



## free_sprtd (Oct 18, 2007)

hmmm it might have been a combination of the things you did, there is a definite difference  the hair dye could have had a bad reaction with her PH and caused it to fall out. my gelding's tail was uber thick like her beginning ones and when I stopped washing it through the winter, he broke it all off by stepping on it, and all his feathers at the top are thick and the bottom is thinner.  I don't use MTG, but sometimes if I leave it braided too long, he ends up ripping it out by getting it caught on things.


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## weefoal (Apr 4, 2009)

I have always said the best thing to do to a tail is leave it alone! 

Years ago a friend braided my mares tail and said to leave it in all winter. After only a month it was a mess so I went to take it out. OMG it was so tangled and interwoven on itself that I had to cut her tail off. Never again!

We condition tails during show season, brush as little as possible and spray the tops of tails with listerine/baby oil to keep them from rubbing or mtg


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## kershkova (Jun 25, 2008)

i braided my 5 year old AQHA`s tait once and it was brittle so a big chunck fell out.


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## jsark (Apr 25, 2009)

I've gotten good results from doing several braids vs. just one. their usually thick as well adn not too tight but I would say about an ince to 2 inches thick individually.. I also conditioned her hair while I was doing it. I usually do this during the summer hotter months and giver her a few braids so she can fend off the flies a bit better too. 

I didnt intend too, but her tail looked great after! I would usually redo it every month just from it getting dusty and dirty which I found would make her hair more brittle nad break.. so redoing it and more conditioner helped.


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## photocowgirl (Mar 4, 2009)

I have always kept my horse's tails braided up in tail socks until I had my daughter. They've had 2 years of being left alone and couldn't look better. Except my dh's horse's tail did thin a bit when we dyed it black last year. We are just going to try to Shapley's (spray on temp color) it for show season this year instead of the dye...we'll see. I'd leave it alone, but she has changed color so much in the last few years that her tail is now flaxen instead of black and it doesn't match her fake tail...appaloosas are so wierd.


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## ponyluv (Apr 25, 2009)

we use showsheen to help our tails.. he got a warmblood who had a shorter thin tail and a few months of brushing is a few times a week with showsheen and grew and became very thick.. id try that.. itll keep her tail from getting too dirty and brittle.. wed spray it in and just not brush it on the off days.. try it


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## riccil0ve (Mar 28, 2009)

I had very bad results. =[ I kept it braided just like you did, loose at the top, not too tight, and then the bottom 10 inches or so was left free for flies. I noticed her tail started thinning out after a month or so, but the thing that really got me was when she stepped on it or snagged it on god knows what. That broke the skin, and when it scabbed over, all the hair that grew out of the bottom two inches of her dock fell out. We're talking ALL the black hair in her two-tone tail. It was terrible and I haven't braided her tail since. Trust me, I know EXACTLY how upset you are, because I cried for weeks whenever I saw her poor tail. To make it look better, I cut her tail short [I don't show] so it wasn't just the long stringy white hairs touching the ground.

BEFORE --










After about five months, this is what it looks like now --


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## Qtswede (Apr 16, 2009)

The only problem I ever had was that my head mare liked to wait until my hubby was walking past, then whack him with her braided up tail (with the big knobby on the end) Never kicked at him, never gave any trouble, just smacked him with the tail... winter, summer - whatever. She likes to pick on him in particular.


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## EternalSun (Mar 29, 2009)

Are you taking it out and rebraiding it weekly or braiding and leaving it for good? I've had the most success with washing my geldings tail in late fall, soaking it in MTG, and braiding and bagging it. I then unbraided once a week, reconditioned it with the MTG, combed it out, and braided again. I did this every week until spring. That worked great for me in the past, although I didn't do it this year because I was lazy. You can't braid it once and leave it for months, this will cause the hair to become dry and eventually break it.

But here's my bad braiding experience: I've been growing Chance's mane out for over a year. It finally got down to _just _past his neck. I gave him a bath over the weekend, washed and conditioned his mane, and braided it in 6 larges chunky braids. I turned him out with his new pasturemate, left, and when I came back his pasturemate had eaten half of a braid! He now has a choppy spot in his mane that's about 3 inches shorter than the rest. Ugh.


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## cowgirlfitzy (Jan 27, 2009)

I had a simillar problem and I started a thread about it and had great pics, but I think I deleted the pics from my photobucket. My problem was not taking it out enough. You have to take it out atleast once a week or more in the summer or they will start to break. I also REALLY like the braid in tail bags but you pretty much have to re do it everyday or it will fall out. Since I have been doing this I have seen improvement. Leaving it alone didn't work for me. It just gets so snarly and then you have to take like 2 hours to brush it and make sure you don't pull any hairs out, then you do anyways no matter how careful you are, and then they get snaged on stuff out in the pasture and then if you have a mare, she comes into heat and pees all over it and makes it all gross and so on. lol sorry about my rant.


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## Jessabel (Mar 19, 2009)

My draft's tail is like Friesian thick and I try to keep it braided because it's a nightmare trying to brush it when it gets tangled. It's wavy, too, so he gets dreadlocks if I don't keep it brushed. I French braid it at the top until it gets close to the end of the tail and then braid normally the rest of the way down. He ends up shaking the band out and it's completely un-braided two days later, though. Silly horse.


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## CloudsMystique (Mar 3, 2009)

I had been taking it out and rebraiding it every few days. I think I'm just going to leave it alone (other than the MTG). That's what I did when she was younger and it still grew a lot. I'm definitely going to stop dying it... I suspect that's what did it.

Thanks for the responses everyone


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## AES (Apr 28, 2009)

This is how I put my tails up now 
Sherri's Stable - Tails!

My horses are out 24/7, and would just destroy bags/wraps on their tails, and create big knots out of braids. This actually stays up, and still allows the horse use of it's tail. :wink:


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## free_sprtd (Oct 18, 2007)

AES do you put the tape on the bottom like she says, or do you have a different way of tying it off?


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## MyBoyPuck (Mar 27, 2009)

I don't touch my boy's tail from late fall until the first warm day in spring. I let it get wet, muddy, filthy and icy. Last week I gave it a good shampoo and condition. It touches the ground. I personally feel that braiding puts more stress on the hairs. If it ain't broke...!


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## AES (Apr 28, 2009)

free_sprtd said:


> AES do you put the tape on the bottom like she says, or do you have a different way of tying it off?


I don't use any tape. As long as you keep it moisturized, it really doesn't seem to come out. All I do is put some leave in conditioner in a spray bottle, and spray it on every couple of days.


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