Turnout Blankets/Sheets

Turnout Blankets/Sheets

Waterproof and windproof turnout blankets are what you need to send your trusty steed into the great outdoors during wet or cold weather.  When you’re shopping for a turnout blanket, you will see the words “Denier” and “Fill”.  Denier hints at, but does not always guarantee a strong outer shell (click the link below to read more about it).  Fill will usually be indicated in grams and applies to how much warm, cozy filling is stuffed inside the blanket (click the link below to read more about it).

• Stinky blankets? Click here before you wash them...
  The most important rules for washing a horse blanket...
  1) Always use a detergent designed for washing blankets. Waterproofing is washed in by the manufacturers and can easily be washed out by you if you use regular laundry soap.
  2) Always wash your blanket in cold water, as hot or even warm water can also remove waterproofing.
  3) Always allow ample time for your blanket to hang dry before you bundle it up and store it away. A damp blanket stored away in the spring equals a mouldy blanket brought out in the fall.
  5) Try to find a bigger washer... stuffing a blanket into a machine that is too small can be bad for the machine, the pipes AND the blanket.
  4) Wrap vetwrap around buckles to help keep them from scratching the washing machine.
• What the dickens is Denier?
  Denier affects the outer shell of a blanket, but not the warmth it provides because denier is a unit of measure for the linear mass density of the fibers used to weave the outer shell. Denier also makes little to no difference in the water/wind proofing of a blanket because that is washed into or sprayed onto the fabric.
  
  Denier is the mass of grams in 9000 meters of the thread used on the outer shell of the blanket (or any fabric in question). Denier is based on the fact that a 9000 meter single strand of silk weights 1 gram, making it 1 denier. SO... a 600 denier blanket is compiled of threads 600 times as heavy as a single strand of silk.
  
  Keep in mind that a higher denier does not necessarily guarantee a stronger blanket. The strength of your blanket is very affected by things such as the length of the threads, what they’re actually made of and how they have been stitched together.
  
• Grams of whatnow? Tell me more about fill...
  “Fill” is the weight (usually per square meter) of polyfill that is inside a horse blanket. A blanket that looks thicker might actually have a lower polyfill than one that looks thinner because of the type of fill used or how “puffed up” it is.
  
  Different companies are going to have different ideas of what is medium and what is heavy, so you might need to investigate to find that magic “fill” number and then decide for yourself. You can, however, almost always count on a lightweight blanket having no fill at all and acting just like a rain jacket.
  
  Generally speaking, the higher the fill the warmer the horse!