Care for a Breyer Horse

Breyer horses, if in good condition, can be worth a lot, so they should be taken care of properly.

[Edit]Steps

[Edit]Keeping the Horse in Good Condition

1. Keep your Breyer horse in a safe place. Don’t leave it out on the floor where it can get stepped on or kicked by accident. Also don’t leave it on a shelf where a pet or sibling might knock it off.
   
2. Try to play with your Breyers over carpet only. If you drop them, they are less likely to break when they land.
   
3. Avoid scratching your Breyer. Once a Breyer is scratched it has to be re-airbrushed to fix it. Keep sharp objects away from the Breyer.
   
4. Play gently with your horses. Don’t play roughly with them- playing roughly often leads to damage.
   

[Edit]Cleaning a Breyer Horse

1. If your Breyer horses get dirty, wipe them with a damp clean cloth.
   
2. Retouch if needed. Sometimes Breyers get the paint worn off on the tip of their ears and tail. If the ears or tail were black, use a Sharpie to re-color the area.
   
3. Expect occasional discoloration. White horses will sometimes yellow with age. You can undo this by soaking the horse in four gallons of hot, not boiling, water with 1 cup of bleach in it.
   
   • Horses with white markings and colored bodies may yellow with age too. You can whiten the yellowing by exposing the horse to direct sunlight.
   • Monitor this whitening process and remember to rotate the horse to complete all sides.

[Edit]Storage of a Breyer Horse

1. Don’t store Breyers in the sun for extended periods of time. They may fade. This means keeping them off a windowsill or a shelf that is hit with lots of sunlight.
   

[Edit]Making Things for Your Breyer Horse

1. Build the horse a barn. You could use an old cardboard box for this; paint it a nice color and build a stall inside it, with a door. Breyer also sells ready-made ones if you prefer.
   
2. Make feed for the horse. You could make a racing mix consisting of breakfast cereal and oats.
   
3. Make buckets to place the feed in. These can be made easily from an egg carton; simply cut out a single egg holder and thread string through its open end, each side, then tie with a knot to keep in place. Hold it by the string and you have an easy food bucket. Add the food made in the previous step and feed it to the horse.
   
4. Write out some charts for the wall of the barn. These can include feeding charts, grooming information and veterinary notes.
   
5. Hang tack from the barn walls. Use toothpicks to make hanging hooks; snap to an appropriate length and glue these to the wall for hanging tack from. Hang the horse’s lead ropes, halters, bridles, etc. from these.
   
   • A saddle stand can be made by placing a craft stick down flat and gluing a craft stick each side of it. Glue it to the wall.
   • Find a small, flat container and use it for keeping riding boots in or blankets.

[Edit]Tips

• If you take them somewhere, don’t put them all in one bag if you don’t want them to scratch or rub paint off on each other, wrap them in cloth or a towel.
• Make sure everyone who handles your Breyer knows that you are collecting them, not simply using them as a toy.
• If you have your models lined up on a shelf, take them out carefully and slowly.
• If you really want to keep your Breyers in mint condition, don’t take them out of their original box. Leaving them in their original boxes makes them much more valuable if you want to resell them.
• Note: If you actually revise your Breyer horses (airbrushing, customizing, bleaching, etc.), they’ll be worth less because they won’t be originals. But it’s more fun playing than collecting, so don’t get too hung up on this.