Chat
08-26-2018, 08:34 AM
Yes, saddle fitting is definitely an issue with these goats, and I'd also love to hear what your saddle fitter friend has to say. The original wooden saddles were designed for Alpines, which have narrow and very straight backs. Modern packgoats, on the other hand, are often mixed with meat breeds or are selected from more muscular dairy lines, so they tend to have much broader backs, often with a bit of sway in them compared to the old style Alpines. This means the wooden saddles just don't fit well. And even a well-fitting wooden saddle, when fully loaded, can slide forward just enough on a steep descent to hit the shoulder blades and make the goat sore next day. This happened to Finn. I wonder if it would help if our wooden saddles could be designed with a slightly upturned front edge to soften that angle against the shoulder and deflect the impact a bit. You really can't stop a loaded saddle from hitting the shoulders on a steep descent, but you could change the angle of the front edge just enough to soften the impact I think. Horse saddles have an upturned front edge to allow for shoulder movement ahead of the saddle, but goat saddles do not. The straight edge can be quite severe on a downhill slope, even if the saddle fits well in other situations.
Soft saddles, of course, will never be as stable as the rigid ones, but when you have a broad, sway-backed goat like Sputnik you don't have a choice. None of the rigid trees come close to fitting him at all. I'm thinking of trying a mini donkey saddle on him. Matt Lyons of Bantam Saddle Tack makes them and told me it might be a better choice for Sputnik. If I try it out and it fits decently, I'll be suggesting that Matt market them for wide goats. I think a lot of our packgoat buddies would benefit from wider saddles. I even wonder if the Nubian reputation for laziness is partly due to the fact that our standard Alpine-designed saddles have never fit them. Nubians generally have wide backs with a prominent dip like meat goats. They are complainers, so if the saddle doesn't fit, they're going to let you know about it in any way they can--even if it means laying down in the trail and refusing to move. Maybe Nubians could pack if they had saddles that didn't hurt them with every step.
Soft saddles, of course, will never be as stable as the rigid ones, but when you have a broad, sway-backed goat like Sputnik you don't have a choice. None of the rigid trees come close to fitting him at all. I'm thinking of trying a mini donkey saddle on him. Matt Lyons of Bantam Saddle Tack makes them and told me it might be a better choice for Sputnik. If I try it out and it fits decently, I'll be suggesting that Matt market them for wide goats. I think a lot of our packgoat buddies would benefit from wider saddles. I even wonder if the Nubian reputation for laziness is partly due to the fact that our standard Alpine-designed saddles have never fit them. Nubians generally have wide backs with a prominent dip like meat goats. They are complainers, so if the saddle doesn't fit, they're going to let you know about it in any way they can--even if it means laying down in the trail and refusing to move. Maybe Nubians could pack if they had saddles that didn't hurt them with every step.