Leaving halters on

GlacierRidge · Sep 8, 2007

Firstly, let me say I do NOT leave halters on any one of my horses. I've never had a bad experience, but I don't want to either! Gracey....LOL....she is always keeping life interesting! (she's WONDERFUL in front of that cart, when she's WORKING! Any other time and she's a little...um....spoiled rotten!)

I have given UP for now, and turned Gracey out with her halter on. She is not really hard to catch. But she is hard to get the halter on. I started just going out, as I do with everyone else here, putting an arm over or under their neck (depending on size!) and putting the halter on. Gracey has drug me ALL OVER the paddock she's in, I can not hold her still! MAN these donkeys are strong! One day, I hit the dirt HARD just trying to get a fly mask on her. Now I have been just hanging a lead rope around her neck, so I have osmething to hold onto....she still drags me all over. Any of my other horses do that, and I back them up until they quit. I can NOT even push Gracey back...let alone ASKING for her to back up! So...I've given up, and I am leaving that halter on.

I suppose I'm not doing anything, by doing it that way, to teach her NOT to do that....but she wears me out just getting a halter on. Lets not get into the harnessing.... LOL

PaintedPromiseRanch · Sep 10, 2007

i've always heard the same thing, DON'T do it, and i know why... BUT - our little rescue mule would be IMPOSSIBLE to catch without it (heck she is just about impossible to catch WITH it

) so Little Miss Maggie does wear hers all the time. she has for years. for a time she even had a short "catch rope" hanging from it but that made me really uncomfortable... not to mention she shredded like three or four of them in a few weeks! i like to think that, being a mule, maybe she is just to smart to get hung up in the halter... she has never had a problem and i just keep my fingers crossed that will continue to be the case. sometimes they just don't give you a choice! but she is the only one out of 30 currently and probably another 30 that have come through here. anyway don't feel bad, you are not alone!

JumpinJackFarm · Sep 10, 2007

I know you shouldn't ...but I do.

At the time Zepp & Bunny are wearing them.

I had them on all if them but Zepp pulled them off Fawn & Abbie .... I found them hanging around their necks...not good :no: ... Bunny is too tall for him to take it off + she would NEVER let him mess with her like that

:

palominogirl · Sep 11, 2007

hello,

I have always heard to take halters off but my horses almost always have a halter on. i have never had any problems with it. but i have always been worried like what if the barn was to catch fire i wouldnt want to lose my babies because i had to take the time to get the halter on. and also my pasture fence also is not the strongest and sturdiest and even though my horse s will follow you like a puppy when they get loose they are not the easiest to catch and it would be even harder to catch them if you have nothing to grab on to. i dont think leaving the halter on would be a problem as long as its not too big and not too tight

good luck

B carroll

NCdonkeygirl · Sep 11, 2007

I've always heard that if you leave a halter on then leather is better because if they do get caught on something it is more likely to break than nylon. I worked at a large horse farm where we had to keep halters on during turn out for identification purposes for a while and we put cheap leather crown pieces on to nylon halters, but the horses used to chew them off of each other. The way my donkeys rub on stuff I'd be afraid to leave their halters on, but I can totally understand doing it for the ones you can't catch.

chandab · Sep 11, 2007

Try not to do it ever, but have had to resort to it on a couple occasions. I've heard too many horror stories about accidents that happen when halters are left on. [Woman I bought my AQHA mare from, sent a filly/colt out for training; trainer put her in a stall with halter on after a work-out, while they were working another colt, came back to find the one in the stall dead, it got the halter hung up on something and hung itself. Countless stories of hooves hung up in halters with negative results.]

I currently have one that was hard to catch when I got her in January. She still isn't the easiest to catch, but she does not wear a halter, not worth the risks for me. She will let me walk her down in the paddock, a little harder to catch out in the pasture, but the others are fairly easy to catch, so I just catch them first bring them in and then she is easier to catch. [They all come into the paddock at night for safety, so I have to catch them all anyway.]

GlacierRidge · Sep 11, 2007

Thanks, I've felt awful about this! I'm going to get her a break-a-way halter, but until I do, I cut up a cheap old leather belt and buckled it into the strap...so it should break if need be. I see why, in all the pictures I received of her before I bought her, she always had her halter on! She is REALLY getting to be little miss "bad butt" attitude lately....lol