11 Products Made From Horses (You Probably Use Them!)

Horses are amazing creatures and the many different body parts are used for very special products when they die.

Here’s a list of all the products that are made from horses

Glue

The most common product we make from horses is glue.

There’s a special thing inside the hooves of the horse which is called collagen. This is turned into some of the finest glue you can find on the planet. The horse-based glue used to be very common and used everywhere but today it is mainly used for finer products such as furniture, glass art, bookbinding, etc.

The glue made from the hooves of the horse is special because you are able to heat up the glue after it has dried up in order to separate the two pieces again.

You can read much more here about how horses are treated when horse glue is made.

Violin Bows

You have probably heard that horse hair are used for the finest violin bows we find in a classical orchestra.

The reason horsehair is used to create violin bows is that they simply produce and much more rich and great sound than a violin bow is made from synthetic materials.

The horses are never harmed in the process as they only cut off part of the tail. But normally the horsehair for violin bows are harvested at the slaughterhouse or at the veterinarian when a horse is being put down.

You can read much more here about how they harvest horse hair for violin bows (note: the horses aren’t killed in the process).

Paintbrushes

The fine hair from horsetails is also is being used for paintbrushes.

When we are talking about fine art paintbrushes, artists want the best of the best. And the best hair you can get for a paintbrush is the hair from the horse.

People also use fine hair from Sables to make paintbrushes. They also have very fine hair that tends to do well with oil and water-based paint for art.

The paintbrushes made from horsehair have the ability to hold a lot of paint. This enables the painter to paint a long time before he or she has to dip the brush into the bucket. This is one of the reasons why paintbrushes made from horses are still being used today both for fine art and for painting walls.

The other reason why people prefer these brushes over other types is found in the way the paint is applied to the wallpaper or the canvas. The horsehair will apply the paint more evenly and smoothly than other materials.

Professional painters prefer them because of their ability to “hold” the paint.

Jello

The gelatin in horses is used in food like Jello and gummi bears. It used to be a lot more common but people still do it in some parts of the world.

The gelatin is a sticky substance that can hold together wobbly substances like Jello.

The gelatin is found in the hooves, just we mentioned in the beginning when we were talking about glue made from horses. We also find gelatin in many other animals such as ducks.

You might’ve noticed that your fingers are often getting really sticky when you are eating a piece of duck meat. This is also the gelatin that you are experiencing here.

Fabrics

The fabrics made from horsehair is typically used for upholstery work and fine interior work.

As we mentioned earlier, the hair from a horse is very durable and it can also be pretty stiff. This makes it the perfect match for upholstery work.

This type of fabric is called “haircloth” and it is typically made from either horsehair or hair from a camel.

This type of fabric has often been used for the stiffer parts of the men’s suit jackets or other fashionable pieces of clothes that require a stiff type of garment. But today we usually use artificially made garments for the stiffer parts of clothing.

Fishing Line

Traditionally, the hair from horses has been spun together to create a very long fishing line.

Back in the day, people will chop off a few strings of hair from the tail of the horse in order to make a fishing line. Several pieces of hair would be spun together to create a very strong and durable line that could hold even a big fish during a feisty fight.

This was the case for thousands of years until we found a better (and cheaper) way to create fishing lines from nylon etc.

Jewelry

Horsehair is also used in bracelets, necklaces, and barrettes.

The fine hair is swollen and braided into fine jewelry that you can wear around your neck or around your wrist. They come in many beautiful colors and variations.

These types of jewelry are still being very popular. You probably won’t find this jewelry in the local jewelry store but you can often find them at markets where people are selling DIY items. If you have horses, you can easily cut off a couple of hairs from the tail in order to create some amazing pieces of art.

Meat

Yes, you heard that right.

Horse meat is being eaten as a delicacy in many countries across the world. It’s not allowed here in the states that it’s a very common source of meat in countries such as France. I have actually tasted it once at a family party where someone recently had a horse put down (in Denmark).

The host wouldn’t tell us where the meat came from and he asked us to take a guess. Most of us would guess that we were eating meat from a deer or a reindeer but after finding out, most of us became pretty uncomfortable, as you can imagine.

That being said, the meat was really good and the taste was great too. It was soft and pretty tender like you would expect from a deer.

Most horse meat is being produced in Mongolia where you can buy a horse for as little as $100. From a 600 pound horse, you will get around 240 pounds of meat. The meat and the milk from horses are considered to be cleaner than that of cattle in this area because they carry fewer diseases.

The horses are slaughtered during November where the meat will contain more fat than during the spring and summer.

Fly Tying

Fly tying used to be very popular as one of the basic components of the perfect fly for fishing is the hair from the horse.

But today people more often using artificial hair simply because the hair from the horse can be pricy and hard to get.

People would pluck the hairs from the horses during certain periods of the year in order to get the most durable and strong hair possible. Horses have different hair at the tail and at the mane and both types have been popular materials for fly tying.

People would also get the hair strings from people playing the violin. Eventually, the hairs of the bow will break and be cut off. These are great for fly tying as well.

Sugar

You might not think of sugar immediately when we talk about products made from horses. But we actually do use bone char from horses to bleach cane sugar.

The bone char is a granular material that is derived from the bone and it has a bleaching ability that is effective to turn the cane sugar white.

This is done by creating a filter containing the bone char. This filter will typically contain 70K pounds of bone char and as it is used for filtering the sugar, it does not end up in the final product.

Pottery

Horsehair is also used for decorating pottery and it has for many years.

The hair is applied to the vases at a very specific temperature in order to it to attach to the surface and create beautiful patterns and lines on the surface of the vase.