How to Easily Remove Witches Knots

Witches knots (also known as fairy knots) are those awful twisted knots that happen in a horse’s mane. I have two horses that get them something awful. The one, I just cut his mane and it grows back every year. The other one is Clancy, a 20 month old stud colt (he hasn’t figured that out the stud part yet so don’t tell him 🤫), he has the most gorgeous mane that I refuse to cut. Mostly because his dam has an incredibly thin mane and a tail that won’t grow past her hocks.


Here I’ll go through the steps I use to get out these knots that plague him and show up overnight sometimes.

Saturate the knots with a detangler (a little usually goes a long way). I like to use vetrolin or cowboy magic detangler, even though they are silicone based and not the best for the hair in the long run, it’s better than pulling out the hair while trying to get these knots out. In a perfect world where it’s not 40 degrees out, I would wash his mane after using this product.

Using your fingers, gently work the detangler down the knots. Once all the knots are saturated start working at the bottom of the knots, seeing what strands of hair you can gently remove from the knot.

After you get the bottom untangled, going up the knot will get easier. You can usually pull small strands from the bigger knot and make the knot easier to come undone.

Once all the knots are removed with your fingers, switch to a regular conditioner and comb the rest of the mane.

As a final step to get the hair to lay flat and to prevent these knots from forming as quickly, I place in a few large braids. I prefer not to band the ends so they can come undone easily.

Clancy is surprised how easy that was!

​Let us know how these tips work for you and share any hacks you may have!