How do you clean your brushes?

Typically I just wipe them on a metal brush to get the dirt off, but are there any other ways of doing it?

Also, for extreme dirt, would you just soak them in water? Or how would you wash them?

I have a couple horses prone to rainrot; I have a set of brushes and combs for each horse and always make sure to stick with the same set of brushes for each of them.

I wash mine, after every use, in very warm water and Dawn Dish soap. A lot of folks soak theirs in Novalsan.

Wooden handled brushes don't hold up as well under all those washings, as the wood eventually gets water-logged and the bristles start falling out.

I am not sure but since we have 22 Horses we sock ours in bleach but the really nice ones we hand wash

Wow, that's a lot! O:
I'm guessing you use just a few sets of brushes for all of them? Or do you have a specific set for each horse?

Each horse has there own hook and a groom bag. We are not a stables our trailer is well a real trailer at least from a train. We have everything each horse needs in there bag. We also have a few box/crates with brushes curries picks and more in them. Thank the lord they are all organized.

Each horse has there own hook and a groom bag. We are not a stables our trailer is well a real trailer at least from a train. We have everything each horse needs in there bag. We also have a few box/crates with brushes curries picks and more in them. Thank the lord they are all organized.

I use a plastic curry to scrape off the day to day dirt. Once a week or so I soak them in dettol and hot water. I don't soak the handle of the brush if its wood though. I will just fill the water up to just below the handle of the brush. Then when I am done soaking I will dip the handle in and then spray it with the hose on high to get the extra dirt out that the soaking didn't get.

I rub whatever brush I'm using against a rubber curry (or the stall bars), often during every grooming session to keep the main dirt out. But when they finally get to the point where they need a bath this is what I do:

I get all the brushes into the bathtub, bristle side down, and fill it up with very warm water to just below the handle. (I do that because I have wooden handled brushes and I don't want to ruin them. If you have synthetic brushes it's fine to just throw them in).

Then I put in Bleach, Listerine, and some dish soap. And then stirred it around slowly. I know, I know, it's a weird combination. But I looked all over on the internet on how to wash brushes, and different people had different things they did so I combined them! Lol. It really worked though.

After they soaked for a couple hours I rinse them with hot water. Then I set them all out on a towel to dry in front of a fan. And I always dry them face up so the bristles don't dry crooked. Plus they dry out faster that way.

I just rub my brush and my curry comb against each other to knock off the hair/dirt buildup. When they're so dirty I'm making Buck dirtier rather then cleaning him, I soak them in hot water with dish soap until the greasy dirt is loosened up and then scrub out the loose dirt with my fingers.

Since I am generally lazy & really like to save time, when the horse gets a bath, the brushes do too. After I am finished bathing the horse, all the brushes go in to the bucket of horse shampoo, scrub 'em together, rinse them out & they air dry on the washrack floor. By the time I am done braiding or banding & loading up for a show, the brushes are dry and I have time for a beer.
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