sheath cleaning large bean removed
Bean from the Sheath
Every spring and fall, starting when a colt is six months to a year old, your responsibility as a horse owner is to clean his sheath. Let’s face it: horses don’t have hands, so they’ve got to rely on someone to clean those little nooks and crannies.
And if that horse is a stallion or gelding, then it’s more than a cleanliness issue: smegma in the sheath and/or hood of the equine penis can turn into hard “beans” as big (or bigger) than that quarter in your pocket. Ouch.
“It’s amazing that he stood so quietly, without tranquilization,” says Cindy Stedman, referring to an 18-year-old Thoroughbred gelding with a bean so substantial that it had to be broken in two to be removed. “It must have been painful.”
Stedman launched her sheath-cleaning service, Suds For Studs, less than a year ago, and has already gained more than 200 clients. “Wild stallions keep clean by breeding, but in our barns, that doesn’t happen. Our role is to do what Mother Nature can’t.”
Sheath cleaning is simple: Cindy uses mild hand soap (Ivory) and warm water. Avoid using products, such as eucalyptus, that can be an irritant. Cleaning a quiet horse should take 20 minutes. Cindy recommends conditioning colts to be handled from their earliest imprinting sessions. Cleaning a nervous horse, slowly and patiently, may take one or two hours. Average cost? About $30 per horse.