How can I reuse or recycle horse hair?
We’ve had an email from Bea:
I’ve always put my horse’s tail and mane clippings on the his manure heap to compost down but I recently wondered if I could use them for something else instead. I’ve heard of horse hair mattresses but don’t think I have enough for that!
According to Wikipedia, horsehair is/has been used “for various purposes, including upholstery, [artists & shaving] brushes, the bows of musical instruments, a hard-wearing fabric called haircloth, and for horsehair plaster, a wallcovering material formerly used in the construction industry and now found only in older buildings. .. [It is also used in] the crafts of horsehair hitching, horsehair braiding, pottery, and in making jewellery items such as bracelets, necklaces, earrings and [hair clips].” I think the latter group is more appropriate to reuses at home – but the former group might provide inspiration on where you could pass it on — for example, if you had a stables and generated a lot of horsehair, a local old-fashioned upholsterer might be interested in it.
You can compost it of course (as Bea has been doing) and some people use it (along with human hair clippings and anything similarly bit-ty) to discourage slugs from delicate.
Any other ideas?
Of course sometimes it just requires some paitence. I remember one time I spent at least 6 weeks, just waiting, and the snow just kept piling up, we were almost running out of food when Spring came, but it was fine, and we learned our lesson to buy more food next year. Not to mention Bears Don’t Make Good Pillows. :-D
Anyway thanks for your e-mail, was great to hear from you, give all our love to Dave and the boys, hope his toe gets better soon, guess that’ll teach him not to put his bits into strange orrifices anymore.
Anyway must dash, got a casserole on.
If I don’t catch you before I will see you on the 28th for Brian’s dinner and we can sort money out for wine then.
Lots of Love
Alice
xx
Intriguing post above but ? LOL
…huh?
Hmm maybe you could use it to make some sort of paint brush or a use it in an alternative drawing project.
http://feliciafollum.blogspot.com/2011/02/circuits-inspired-art.html
Violin bows are made of horsehair, I think. I don’t know what quality is needed or where they get the hair when they make them, but someone must sell it to them. Might be worth asking a bow-maker. I suppose a violin-maker would know a bow-maker.
Collect all your horse hair, dog hair, cat hair, human hairor any other hair, fill up bird feeders in the winter/spring for birds to use for nest building……..
Hi,
I need as much horse hair as for the body of the horse ie clippings,the idea is to mack a ring of bitumen to seal the pothole repair at the end of the Roadmole job….in order to do this i form a ring of bitumen ,as it only 3mm thick and will break ,it needs the introduction of horse hair to make more flexible ring ,this will speed up our process of eliminatind potholes !
Many Thanks
Doug Jackson
Roadmole
Make a ring haha