Halters and Leads

[Taffy]

When I was visiting Nan & Phil Hassey earlier this month Nan showed me her Sopris halters and how well they fit.  I ordered two size 3 and two size 4 for my boys.  They fit beautifully!  They lie flat on the face and have a number of rings where I can hook a lead or driving lines.

I need to get leads.  Which leads do you seasoned packers prefer - round rope or flat webbing?

[Sanhestar]

I use round rope and after several encounters of the third kind with cheap hooks and rope I buy my rope from a sailing outfitter (cotton round rope, soft, nice feel in the hand) and splice it myself.

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

Yep, love them halters Taffy. I followed Nannos advise as well and got one for Legion. Lighter and stronger then I expected.

[Charlie Horse]

I like to use the flat nylon dog leashes on my goats. They have a loop at the end and you can loop it around a tree or high-line, feed the buckle through and you've got a quick way to secure a goat permanently. Horse lead ropes are unnecessarily heavy. I just dragged my horse's lead through a patch of some kind of mint weed in their field and the soft rope fibers got filled with a zillion prickly burrs. Nice.

[IdahoNancy]

Round rope, needs to be soft. I have rubber dog leashes for walking around town but on the trail I want clips with swivels on both ends. I make my own because like Charlie I find the horse leads are heavy but I love the good swivel clips so I bought the parts and found the rope I liked. About 4 ft long works well for me if I need to put my boys in a pack string formation. Back goat halter clips to front goats collar.

[Nanno]

I use 6' nylon dog leashes for our day hikes because they're lightweight and easy to shove in a pocket. But if we were doing something more serious I'd use lengths of climbing rope because they're stronger and you can tie safely. Nylon webbing is an entanglement hazard because it loops easily, cinches tight, and the edges are sharp.

For my rope, I use 10 or 11mm "workhorse" climbing rope. I cut lengths off as needed to make lead ropes, high lines, tow ropes, etc. It's extremely strong, easy to knot and un-knot, it lasts almost forever, and it can't get full of burrs. It's somewhat heavy and bulky, but not so bulky as yachting rope. It's also not as soft on your hands.

[goatzrule]

So this is kind of of topic but iv'e been trying to order some halters and leads from Sopris and when I try to and them to the cart it says that "hmm this is currently unavalible please try again later" this has been going on for 3 days anyone know what's going on?

[Nanno]

Try calling the phone number. Sometimes websites break and the owner can't know until someone finally calls about it. Or maybe he's just out of stock right now. Either way, I'd be calling the number.

[goatzrule]

he must be out of stock on the halters I need halters and lead ropes. I tried adding the halters to my cart it said things are not working when I tried adding the leads it worked fine. Nanno witch leads do you recommend?

[Nanno]

I would still call and ask. Sometimes one page will work on a website and others won't--especially if the halters page was edited recently. If he is truly out of everything in that size, then you could at least get an ETA and let him know there's a demand.

I get nylon dog leashes from Jeffer's. I like the 6-foot leashes and I believe my favorite width is 3/4".