01-08-2020, 12:52 PM
(01-07-2020, 08:42 PM)Stringinit Wrote: It just kinda looks bad with them having bald spots. My understanding is the slick material is what you want, where it kind of just glides across their hair and if you add any padding it just makes it worse. So I assume I'll have to live with it.
No, your goats should not have bald spots. Once the hair rubs off, the skin will begin to chafe. A little broken hair around the breast and butt straps is ok, but bald spots are a sign that the chafing is severe. Wide padding as Sanhestar suggested can help with this. You'll see a lot of hair rub off into the padding but it will distributed over a large area instead of leaving concentrated bald spots that can become sores. I really like the Marc Warnke yoke design to eliminate shoulder rubs but I haven't personally used it myself. He swears by it though. If you want to stick with your current saddles, you could call and ask if you can attach yokes to regular saddles. I'd be interested to find out if that works.
A single front cinch is a bit problematic because it tends to pull the saddle forward into the shoulders and also has the issue you're having where the rear end pops up. I like a double rigging, however I don't particularly care for the Butt-Head saddle design. The edges of saddle bars are not beveled and tend to dig into the shoulders pretty hard.
The Northwest mountain rigging is pretty good, although the single cinch coming down from a central ring has its own problems--namely that it places the cinch too far back where it is no longer resting on the sternum. However, I think if you can adjust the ring placement so that it's closer to the front instead of located dead center, the design could work. The Northwest saddle I have with the mountain straps was originally a kit that someone else put together, so I can't be certain that the guy built it quite right. It could be that the "factory made" saddle has better rigging placement.
Although I haven't personally used one, I love the quality of the Bantam saddles. They're very well made. I also hear very good things about Marc Warnke's saddle but I haven't had the opportunity to use one myself. They are longer and heavier than a standard wooden saddle so make sure your boys are large enough to handle the extra length.