How to Wash a Stallion's Sheath

A stallion's sheath should be washed twice a year using water and mild soap to remove any smegma, dirt or debris. Use a hose to flush out the stallion's sheath with helpful advice in this video on caring for horses.

Hi I'm Rick Gore at the Travis Equestrian Center. Today we're going to talk about sheath cleaning. Gelding's sheath need to be cleaned some people say more I say twice annually is probably enough. Some people do it every quarter. Some people do it once a month. You don't want to clean it too much because it removes good bacteria that the horse needs. Basically, sheath cleaning is get, messing with the sheath and getting the horse comfortable to you being around his back legs. Again, if you've done your sacking out, if you've done a bunch of desensitizing with him, he's not going to have a problem with you reaching up there grabbing that, he's not going to have a problem with you squirting a hose on him. So to start the sheath cleaning process, basically I'm just going to get him wet, he knows about it, I'm going to touch him, he knows he feels me feeling him. After I get him wet, you can use, there's several different pre-made stuff, some people use ivory soap. I don't use anything, sometime I will just use a water and I'll just get my hand up in there and pick out pieces. Some people use gloves. You can see that I'm pulling off pieces of dirt, it's called smegma. It collects up there, the water makes it soft so it peels off pretty easy. Again this horse knows that I do this a lot, so he's not going to be worried about it. Some people like to use a sock, they'll put their hand in a sock and then get the sock wet and use the sock as a scrubbing to go ahead and reach up under there and just scrub around. If you use a cleaner, get a little soapy, it gets kind of smells mentholated, it's kind of cooling. Basically you're just going to get your hand up in there, you want to make sure and try to pull out any chunks of dirt, debris, any stuff that you see up in there. If you keep the water running in there, it helps flush it. You can actually stick the hose right up in there and it'll just fill up with water and then drain out. If you keep the water running there, as you pull out, the different parts of debris that you pull out of there, you can just rinse it away. Doing this twice a year is usually good enough. Again, you don't want to be reaching back here right away without making sure that the horse knows and respects you enough not to kick you, not to be afraid, not to be shocked. It's not the first time that you've ever reached up there and grabbed that. You should be rubbing and desensitizing him, setting him up for this so you have a good experience and he knows to allow it and that you're not going to hurt him. And that's how you clean a sheath.