Pardon my possibly ignorant harness question

[didgery]

Is it possible to buy a breastcollar style harness and convert it for use with a collar and hames? What are the other—besides the collars—differences between the two types?

I ask because I am interested in the better weight-distribution and lower air-flow interference of a work-type harness with a collar for heavy pulling, but I thought that the saddle on the harness I was looking at looked flimsy (lacking a tree) and I thought it might not work for taking shaft weight if I used it for driving as well.

I don’t have a vehicle yet, so all of this is purely hypothetical, but can one get a buggy-style harness with a breastcollar and then remove the breastcollar and use a pulling collar and hames in its place?

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment you can offer! Feel free to point out the error of my thinking, I’m a novice driver and I’m here to learn.

[Cielo_Azure]

Absolutely BUT to do that, the best set up of harness is where the traces unbuckle into two pieces (the buckle is just at the point of the saddle/shaft loop holders).

For instance, a draft horse style harness -the traces often bolt (or are very difficult to undo) onto the hames and it is not so suitable to switch out full collar for breast collar. I just looked at your other post, this will be true for a lot of mule harness.

Cheaply made harness traces also do not unbuckle but are unbroken from the hames to the vehicle and they are not so suitable to switch out full collar for breast collar.

But there are lots of designs were it is most definitely possible and lots where it is not. You just have to look out for them.

Here is a good photo
http://www.smuckersharness.com/pg17.html
It shows the buckle on the traces (the type of harness -long tug is for a team but I think you can see how one would just undo the hames-tug buckle and replace the front section with a breast collar.

Do not be frightened of a collar though. I love them because they fit my horses so well and especially the pleasure harness collars are not very heavy (are you thinking about a draft or a light horse)?

Right now, you need to concentrate on what you will be doing in order to make good buying choices. But don’t be frightened of a full collar!

[sk_pacer]

I don’t know if they still make them but years ago (think back to horse and buggy days) they made convertable harness, both single and team. It came with collar, hames and tugs and breast harness that could be changed according to vehicle type. I haven’t a clue who made it but it was sold both through Sears and Eaton’s catalogues as well as most hardware stores as late as the early 1960s

[goodhors]

You can order a harness with the breast collar, then but a pair of hames with SHORT TUGS for driving a single animal with a collar. Short tugs are about 12"long from the hames eye, so buckle-in trace is ahead of the harness saddle and not rubbing on shaft. The short tugs have buckles to allow length adjustment on traces or different ended traces for attaching to various style singletrees. Then it is up to you to use the full/neck collar or breast collar with the rest of the harness.

You may want to take the mule to a harness seller, to be sure he is fitted correctly for the full collar. You also may need to get the hames “fitted” to him since most are shaped like this: ( ) insead of a sharper L shape on each side. Your farrier might be helpful there, can heat the hames to bend them in shaping to fit HIS neck. We don’t know any animals that fit the generic shape of new hames. We have modified our hames to fit the horse that wears each set, then marked hames to keep them for that horse.

You might go back in the archives to read about using breast collars and full or neck collars and why folks chose one over the other. Fitting the full collar WELL, and KEEPING it fitting correctly, is difficult on a working animal. He changes shape with muscle use. Full collars are not cheap, you may need a couple different sizes and shapes to keep him comfortable during a season of use.

Full collars do allow pulling a bigger load, but with more skin in contact with the face (inside edge) it is easier to burn his skin when working. You can burn them VERY fast, in less than 15 minutes sometimes! Burn will show with wrinkling skin under the collar, usually shoulders, then peeling within a couple days, often hair loss. Some horses grow hair back white! We don’t use one who has been burned, let skin recover which might be a week or more. Takes a while to get skin under the collar to toughen up, not burn the shoulders. You kind of walk a fine line in getting skin conditioned to work under the full collar, not too much to burn him, not too little or he won’t get toughened.

We have all buckle-in traces on our breast collars. Cheaper to buy traces than a whole new breast collar with sewn-in traces. Same traces fit the short tugs of hames for full collar use.

For a light cart with 2-wheels, a breast collar is fine, and still good for a light 4-wheel vehicle. Full collars are for heavier vehicles, more passengers being pulled. As a beginner driving animal, keeping things light and easy to move for a while, is encouraging to him. He will get more fit, comfortable in his work, so then more weight behind is not “hard work” for him. Often takes a while to get the animal brave with bigger loads, confident in handling it.

[system]

Do not be frightened of a collar though. I love them because they fit my horses so well and especially the pleasure harness collars are not very heavy

[Thomas_1]

To help, I’ve just cut and pasted a previous posting about collars in the faq’s

[didgery]

You’ve all been very helpful! I’ve confirmed with my intended harness vendor that I can start with a breastcollar setup and then add a harness, hames and short tugs if and when we move to heavier work.

Thanks again! I love this board!

Marnie