Horse Trailer Maintenance Guide: Deep Clean
If you’ve got a horse trailer, you don’t need us to tell you it can get really dirty! To ensure the safety and continued good health of your four-legged friends, proper maintenance to your horse trailer needs to be done regularly. It’s also the best way to prolong the life of your trailer.
To help you do the job well, we at Double B Trailer Sales have compiled this guide about deep cleaning horse trailers. Read on to learn more or come down to our dealership to chat with our helpful staff. We have a dealership in Centerville, Utah, near Salt Lake City and Ogden. We also have a dealership in Hurricane, Utah, near St. George and Washington.
Getting Started
You should ideally clean your horse trailer within 24 hours of having transported a horse. If the horse was sick, don’t use a high-pressure washer as it’s likely to spray the infectious agents into the area outside the trailer. Decide if you want to remove the dividers for the cleaning.
Gather your supplies, like a stiff brush, broom, foaming agent, bleach, and other disinfectant products. You should wear protective clothing and gloves, especially if the transported animal was ill. Remove all items like hay-nets and floor mats and sweep the feed and manure out of the trailer.
Cleaning The Trailer
Rinse the inside of the horse trailer with a low-pressure hose. Then use a foaming agent and a stiff brush to clean the roof, walls, and floor of your horse trailer. The scrubbing brush should be able to fit into corners to get them clean. Start from the top down: scrub an 18 to 24-inch section of the roof, then one wall, then the other wall, and finally, the floor. Keep doing this until you’ve foamed up the entire interior of the trailer. Use the power hose to rinse off the soap.
If there’s an area that’s still got organic matter caked on, scrub it again and hose off. If there are any padded areas in the trailer, clean them with a soft cloth or sponge and dry them completely. Soap and rinse the outside of the horse trailer, including the wheels.
Disinfecting It All
Now that your horse trailer has clean surfaces, it’s time to sanitize it by spraying all surfaces with a disinfectant. You should scrub the solution in to ensure it covers every inch of the trailer, including the doors, hinges, and the loading ramp. You can use a store-bought product or make your own mixture of one part bleach for every ten parts of water.
Use the products as recommended by the manufacturer or their label instructions. For the bleach solution, leave it on surfaces for at least 10 minutes. Rinse off the solution and allow the horse trailer to dry completely.
Cleaning Carpet & Mats
If your tack room carpet isn’t too dirty, you can simply sweep then vacuum clean it. For the floor mats, rinse both sides out with the power hose to remove caked on dirt and debris. Use a foaming agent to scrub one side from the top left to the bottom right and wash it off. Then apply the bleach solution or disinfectant product on it and allow it to dry. Follow the same procedure for the other side, then wait for the floor mats to dry before putting them back in the horse trailer.
Final Points
To make cleaning an easier process, never leave feed, hay, wet bedding, or anything that can rot in your trailer. You can use these to create compost or give it to someone who’ll compost them. You can sprinkle a layer of baking soda on the floor before replacing the mats. Baking soda is anti-acidic and neutralizes horse urine.
Before your horse trailer is ready for its next trip, you should ensure that the chains and hitch are functioning properly. The floor and the walls should be rust-free, and the vents, windows, and dividers should all be up to code. Check your turn signals, hazards, and brakes and ensure that the tires are in good condition.
We hope these tips will help you keep your horse trailer in good shape for years to come. If you’d like more information, visit Double B Trailer Sales. We’ve got a wide collection of horse trailers for sale near Centerville and Hurricane, UT, where we happily serve our friends from Salt Lake City and St. George.