Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
Call me old fashioned.......But I,ve been using an old leather motorbike jacket for the last couple of years bought from a second hand shop for 4 pound.Decent leather can also be found in old 1950s and 60s ladies handbags.You do get some funny looks mind when youre going through all the handbags checking the thickness..... Allan.
What do you think about .08 mm goat skin. Is it any good for smaller birds. For the most part I just want it to practice with because it's really cheap, but if it's OK to use for smaller falcons I can give the stuff I make to our nature center. Let me know your thoughts on it.
What do you think about .08 mm goat skin. Is it any good for smaller birds. For the most part I just want it to practice with because it's really cheap, but if it's OK to use for smaller falcons I can give the stuff I make to our nature center. Let me know your thoughts on it.
I did hear of someone useing goat skin on kestrel anklets as it's soft. But it stretches easy I think? so you have to watch out for that.
I'm sure someone with better knowledge will chime in here.
" Insanity takes its toll..........please have exact change"
I've been told to stay away from anyleather that is questionable. I don't know how toxic chromium tanning is there from I stay away from it. Error on he side of safety. There are so many small pieces of leather used for jess and bewits do you realy want to poison you bird cause your not sure of the tanning process. I use cowhide tooling leather the type found in saddle shops. It 's relatively cheap and I can buy a couple square feet at a time, so 20 bucks in leather last quite a while and makes lots of equipment it might not be the toughest leather around but it doesn't need to hold horses. I've been tempted to buy a braided reign from the tack shop for a leash. Call me pariniod and I'm not saying that the chromium process is harmful I'm just saying I don't want to do the home work to find out when i know the other works. Chris
my concern with questionable leather is whether it's gonna stretch or tear. I use a goatskin glove for my kestrel, i would never use it for her equipment. I use only high quality 'roo leather for that. Don't know about the chome tanning, seen it advertised by falconry suppliers though. I would never use leather made for womens accessories because it's just that, accessory grade, it's not intended for work load, and when the birds safety is my responsibility, i'm not taking that risk. just my two cents...
Youre dead right...........95% of handbags are bad leather and not built to last... BUT it was a different ball game over here in the 50s and 60s when quality counted.Ive picked up Camel skin,Kangaroo,lovely soft buckskin and suede(brilliant for liners) for next to nothing.Also there are different colours that make amazing looking Chaps..... As far as workload......I wouldnt worry too much.If a motorbike jacket it designed to stop you taking your skin and muscle off down to the bone travelling at 100mph across the surface of a racing track I think it could cope with the hefy bate of a 9oz Kestel Cheers Allan.
Goat will stretch especially when it gets wet. That's why they used it for certain percussion instrument heads. I would avoid it. Nothing wrong with saving a few bucks by ferreting out good leather at the thrift store... key word "good" leather. Anklets and jesses are most definitely NOT the place to experiment with low quality leather!
experiments should not be done on the bird. You should be confident with something befor you put it on your bird. Just to clearify for anyone who my have confused that statement we should al kow that but some time we forget or assume the newbies know that.