Uneven Tails?

[LadySiha]

Still mostly a novice but I'm cleaning up some G1's from a lot, and I'm noticing some of their tails are uneven.  I don't think they're cut, it'll just have one small chunk that's abnormally long in relation to the rest.

Is it just the metal piece in the tail giving out from over brushing, or age?  Should I be worried about tail rust in these?  Or is something else weird going on that I should know about.

[Leave a Whisper]

Still mostly a novice but I'm cleaning up some G1's from a lot, and I'm noticing some of their tails are uneven.  I don't think they're cut, it'll just have one small chunk that's abnormally long in relation to the rest.

Is it just the metal piece in the tail giving out from over brushing, or age?  Should I be worried about tail rust in these?  Or is something else weird going on that I should know about.

It may have been trimmed from being frizzy and hair can pull out unevenly when you brush it regardless of how careful you are.

[lunar_scythe]

also, if it's roughly half the tail, then the washer can be on crooked, that's pretty common too.

[mlp4me]

It's pretty common to have slightly uneven tails. The main reasons have already been mentioned. If you're noticing discoloration around the tail hole or even bleeding onto the tail that's brownish it's time to take them apart (sometimes it is super obvious). Some you can tell if they need to be cleaned by holding them up to the sun (or the bottoms of their feet have discoloration that seems darker than the rest of the body).

[Baby Sugarberry]

The tail clamps on US/UK ponies are generally so aggressive it's nigh impossible to pull out hair from them - however I've come across one or two where the machine didn't crimp it completely, which left the tail hair loose.  How much hair are we talking here? That'll narrow things down to the possible reason some.   I've also seen a couple ponies where they had a bit of extra hair length on a very small section of mane or tail, likely because the manufacturing machine didn't cut it at the right point.  Again not common, but it does happen.

[hathorcat]

I have certainly come across a lot of ponies over the years with tail clamps that are not central on the hair which means the hair is uneven. It is normally easy to spot as 1/2 of the tail is going to be shorter than the other 1/2. However you do also get cases of there being a few hairs longer than the rest of the tail but again we would only be talking about a few hairs that have managed to dislodge themselves over time, seldom enough that you would even notice unless on close inspection.

Do  you perhaps have a photo of the ponies affected?

[Freeindeed]

This is a fairly common flaw... a lot of times the tails just weren't pulled through evenly at the factory. If it's about half of the tail that's longer, that's usually the culprit.