What Is the Surcingle and How Does It Work?

Speaker 1
And so we had someone texting in saying, I got a small mule and I wanted to know, will the surcingle that you sell fit my mule? So, first and foremost, can you explain what the surcingle is, what it’s meant to do? And then after you explain that, take a few minutes to kind of talk about how you want to get that surcingle set up and if it could be too big or if it could be too small for the animal.

Speaker 2
Basically, the way I rigged it up, Dave, is it’s three inches wide, okay, and it’s about two and a half feet long. And then it has rings on it all around it leather or Beta across the top and wool felt on the inside against the animal. And then it has two nylon ladder goes hanging from a D ring on each side. And then you can put any size cinch you want. So if you got a big old mule, you put this surf single on there and your tie straps are long enough, put it into a 40 inch cinch and it’s going to fit. You got a small little donkey, you just go ahead and put the surf single across it. You don’t even have to use a cinch on it. You can just tie off the straps on the bottom and you’re done. In other words, I could fit something about this big or something as big around as David from Australian’s Belly. Dave, I hope you’re there.

I put it on draft or I can put it on small. So it’s made up for doing all sizes.

So what it’s used for? What it’s used for is to help you do your first saddles, because it’s usually the cinch that kind of binds them up and gets them worried so they can feel that pressure there and they feel the pressure across the top of their back. They can feel that pressure there. And small is good in the very beginning. The problem is people think they’ll put a saddle on there and by God, they’re going to see if he’s going to do anything. Well, try something smaller first, folks, like a service angle and it works a lot better. So let’s go on. So these rings are in key places so that I take balance twine and I put the halter on my donkey or I put the halter on my mule and I put balin twine from the bottom of the halter over to the rings on this surf single. And then the balance twine is not tight. It’s fairly loose so that as soon as they move, then it becomes tight. But as they’re standing there natural, it doesn’t become tight. If you make it too tight, you will break and brace. If they can reach down on the ground and get a bite to eat, it’s too loose.

Speaker 2
So that’s the other thing to think about. And the purpose of it is to be able to have some type of pressure on the halter or some type of pressure on the bit so that they learn to be bridal wise or learn to be halter wise. And it’s inexpensive that way. Because if you try to hook it up on your saddle, which you could do you better stay right there. Because if Mr. Donkey decides he’s going to roll or Mr. Mule decides he’s had enough he’s going to bang into the side of the corral panel with your brand new saddle in this way. Here less than $70. You got a certificate. So the purpose of it is to be able to hold the lines, the pieces of string, the balance twine, so that as my mule moves, as my donkey moves right, left, right, left, as he moves, he feels the bit back and forth. And that’s what you want them to feel. You want them to feel that movement there like that. And then pretty soon they start thinking, man, that’s kind of uncomfortable. So they drop their head and they tip their nose.

Speaker 2
When they drop their head and they tip their nose, they start softening up. And what’s that happening? They’re teaching you’re teaching how to respect. Be respectful of the halter. That’s one of the biggest problems that we have today out there, folks, is these horses and these mules. You see them, they lead and they’re nice and quiet as long as things are okay. No buggers around. They’ll follow along. But all of a sudden, if there’s a monster, if they decide they don’t want to lead, man, they’ll jerk it away from you. But the nice thing about having them be respectful of the halter is when he comes into a problem, you can handle it.

Speaker 1
That’s good. Very helpful. And I think we’re actually going to need to update the description on our search single product on the website that was really, really good. So hopefully that gives I can’t remember the person I had it in front of me and don’t have it anymore. Hopefully that gives you a little bit of information on how to get that surfing to work and the sizing question that you had there as well.