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?

We’ve had an email from “the Cleworths”, asking a rather interesting question:

A family member died and we are left with a fur coat that charity shops won’t take and neither will any period clothing outlets.

Any advice as how to pass this on other than taking to dump?

I can see why charity shops won’t take them – even though it’s second hand, it’d still be promoting the idea of fur as clothing – but does that mean the coat should just be dumped?

Is there anything that can be done with it that won’t promote the future use of fur – but stops this fur being wasted?

(Photo by markjhandel)

UPDATE: I’ve just deleted about 40 comments of people trying to buy or sell fur coats. I don’t like censoring discussion but this isn’t the place for it or for organising buying/selling stuff and it’s clogging up the comments list. Any future comments of this nature will be deleted too.

One of the ways we ask for suggestions of items to feature here is for people to send in clever things they’ve done. Wendy Brodie did just that and sent in some great ideas:

I have 2 long haired dogs and the hair when they moult is quite substantial. I used to do some spinning and weaving and it could be used for this.

It is lovely watching the small birds coming for bits of fur to line their nests.

We do the bird nest thing too – using the ivy up the front of our house to hold the wares instead of chicken wire – and if you want to go the other way, there are a couple of companies about the web which will spin the fluff for you (this one gives instructions but has stopped taking in work at the moment).

Animal fluff (like human hair) can also be composted or used around plants to keep slimy things at bay (slugs and snails don’t like the rough texture so are less likely to climb over it to get to your seedlings).

Any other suggestions for ways it can be reused?

(Photos of the lovely Kookie and Rosie, and the chicken wire fluff holder, by Wendy)