Some people insist on leaving halters on unattended animals. This is a dangerous practice that can lead to the injury or death of your animal. Below are stories submitted by some people. Feel free to email any of them for further info. You may pass these stories on with the inclusion of the person's email address and name. You may also print this out and dispense it freely to those who are unaware of the dangers. The point of this page is to save owners from the heartache and loss many have suffered, and to save livestock from beings victims of halter accidents.

You can tell them the story about Baron that we went and rescued a few months ago. He had his halter on for a minimum of two years that we could find out about. It had grown down into the bone in his nose about 1 inch. The vet said it was very close to being into his nasal passages. After soaking it for a while to get it off, there was a hole underneath it on the bridge of his nose. The hole was full of maggots and smelled like you would not believe! The next day after removing the halter, his nose began to swell because the halter had been acting like a tourniquet. We then panicked that we had done more harm than good by removing it! His breathing sounded terrible! The vet gave him some medication to decrease the swelling and lots of antibiotics. We washed it out every day for several days and it has healed up quite nicely. He will always have a hole there, but otherwise seems happy and healthy!

I am sure there are many others out there with similar stories and not all of them ending up as good as this one did. Baron was a lucky boy. We are happy he came into our lives and we could have a small part in helping him. He is a beautiful, sweet llama who did not deserve what was so thoughtlessly done to him!

I can honestly see no reason to leave a halter on. If you cannot at least get your llama into a catch pen, then you are going to have no better luck at trying to grab at the halter! Llamas are smart and are easily trained to put their halters on. Why would people do this to an animal they profess to love? It is senseless abuse and there is NO reason good enough to do it! Glenda Steinke silcoxllamas@olympus.net in WA

Our neighbors left their halters on their horses all the time and the yearling colt was playing with their billy goat who has long horns when one long horn got caught in the horses halter. I was putting up fence close by and I heard the blood curdling screams of both goat and colt. Luckily it was a weekend and I was close by or one of the two would have been tragically hurt or died. It was terrible.

They still left the halters on after this (!) and that same colt's face grew around the halter. When the vet got it off there were big holes and sores where the skin had adhered to the halter. They are leaving the halters off now. Jill Miller llama@your-net.com in OH

We had only had llamas for about 2 months. 2 young females a little over a year old. We of course being the dimwitted new llama owners left the halters on. Well, one of them got snake bit... on the nose. We were not at home at the time, I was at work. My hunny was in town running errands. When he came home poor Chocolate Chip was standing on our dam in the water. She was totally soaked and her face was so swollen she couldn't even see. She had fallen in the creek and was afraid to move as she couldn't see. He picked her up to carry her to the barn. (She was standing just really scared and he didn't have a lead so he just picked her up.) Her face had swelled so much that the halter ripped her cheek area. She still has a scar. Her bottom lip was just hanging down and her top lip was about 6" in diameter. She was a pretty sad sight, and I definitely do not leave halters on anymore!!Julia Mink jmink@mwec.com in TX

When I was a kid my best friend's pony (halter left on in the field) got the halter snagged on an old wooden truck bed and strangled to death. My own pony snagged her halter on a fence she was tied to for grooming and began to strangle. I had to cut the halter off to save her. I also had to cut the halter off a llama who snagged a halter ring on the shoot and was strangling (this was a real strange snag). At a neighbor's (when we were trimming toenails), a llama was tied to the barn wall, jumped up and snagged his halter on a nail and was strangling, again had to cut the halter off. Even when you are present, halters can be dangerous. I always carry a knife and have an emergency knife in the barn. Leaving a halter on when you aren't there is IMO (I have no humility on this subject - Big Grin) asking for a dead animal. Please feel free to share these comments with whomever you wish. Alvin Matochika Matochika@aol.com in NC

We used to raise Arabians and I had a month old foal that was getting used to the halter and being lead. Norm asked me to go run an errand with him so I said, "Sure - we'll be right back.". During this training I would leave the halter and short lead on and stay out there with the foal, but this time I left him. I remember looking back and saying "Oh, darn, I left that halter on Fred". (Fred for an Arabian filly? - well, that is another story). We got sidetracked and didn't return for 3 hours. By now it was dark and I had forgotten about that halter. In looking out the kitchen window, I saw Mandy (dam) racing from the dark area of the arena to the lighted area that was nearest the house. Each time she came to the light, she screamed at the house. About two times I realized she was screaming for us to come help her. Those of you who are familiar with mares and foals know what I mean about screaming! I found the foal at the dark end stuck on a sprinkler by her halter. The arena HAD three sprinkler down the center for settling the dust... Somehow she got a sprinkler stuck thru the side of the halter, probably scratching and in her struggles flipped herself over and the tire that was around the sprinkler to protect it from the horses had flipped over and was around her neck. BTW, we feel the tire flipping over saved her from a broken neck. Her eyes were open and full of sand; her tongue was out and her mouth was full of sand. There were no other obvious injuries. I started crying and yelling for Norm to come help me. I thought he was coming to help me remove a dead filly from the arena. I couldn't get her free, the halter was so twisted it was binding her muzzle below the eyes and he had to cut it off. Mandy kept running back and forth and sticking her face in mine as tho she thought I could fix her little girl. I was devastated and all I could do was tell her how sorry I was that I did that to her baby. It brings me to tears to this day because I had always thought I was a very good animal mom. Suddenly Norm is telling me to get a blanket, he thinks she is breathing! He wants to stop the shock and keep her warm until... I ripped off my winter coat and he used that and I ran in to call the vet! We rolled her on the jacket and dragged her into the light; cleaned her mouth out and started rubbing her. At this point, she is not moving, not visually breathing. She was wet from sweat in her struggles and we were trying to get her system working. At a time like that, you do things that may not make sense later but you HAVE to do something. We had to hold her up for the first couple of hours but she got stronger and stronger. BUT, the halter had damaged all her nerves from the eyes down. Her lips were slack and her tongue didn't quite fit in her mouth. She couldn't nurse because she couldn't purse her lips to close them on Mandy's udder. I milked Mandy and tried to bottle her, but that didn't work because she couldn't close her lips on a bottle either. Mandy wasn't real understanding about Fred trying to hold the teat with her teeth! Some good friends who worked at the local hospital brought me "outdated" (yeah, right) baby formula that is given away free at the hospital to families with new babies. We made it up in a bucket and I taught the filly to drink with her muzzle buried in the bucket below the liquid line. Needless to say, as time went on, anyone carrying a white bucket MUST be coming to her! So now we could feed her and the vet says in time the nerves may regenerate so she COULD be nearly normal. I felt guilty, I had to do whatever it took to make her better. My father in law had a TENS monitor (it was used to treat phantom pain he had from lung surgery). It sends out an electrical impulse to help block pain or in this case, we were going to use it to try and regenerate the nerves so her face "worked" better. (She couldn't flare her nostrils so if she played hard or got frightened or did anything that necessitated inhaling major air; her nostrils would suck closed effectively suffocating her, which in turn would put her into a state of panic making the situation even worse.) The TENS is used on people for that purpose according to a therapist friend. The vet thought I was crazy, but "it couldn't hurt". Twice a day, I went out there and gave her a treatment. Bless her little heart, she was so patient! But I was committed - it took nearly a year before she was normal looking (at least to me). She turned out fine and in spite of everything had a wonderful personality and sense of humor. But I learned a good lesson and don't allow anyone to leave halters on their animals if they are boarding here. I have even been known to stop and talk to perfect strangers and tell this story if I see their animals in their pastures with halters on. Louise Kerr ayotte@OWT.COM in WA

Larry and I were working at a Boy Scout camp one summer. The recreations director added some horses to the activity program that year. The first or second day of camp, he left one of the horses, which was still haltered, unattended in what was supposed to be a safe paddock because he wanted to work with the horse later and didn't want to have to bother rehaltering him. A bunch of the kids came up to the horse area 45 minutes later to find that the horse had reared up and somehow caught his halter on an overhanging tree branch. The halter had twisted in the horse's thrashing around to get loose and suffocated the horse, which was still partially hanging from the large branch of the tree. We spent the next three days in the pouring rain digging a grave big enough to bury a full grown horse deep enough so that indigenous critters wouldn't be dragging body parts around to further freak out the already freaked out campers. Can't you imagine their responses when asked that fall, "What did you do this summer?".

I NEVER leave a halter on an animal now. Even when the breeder delivered my first two llamas and I didn't know a thing about handling them, when he asked if I wanted the halters left on, I shouted NO! Kris Hopkins hopkinsl@gogebic.cc.mi.us

We have high tensile fencing and I had left a halter on a male while he was in the pasture. As llamas will do, I suspect he was scratching his face on the fence and got the halter snap caught on the fence so he was now attached to the fence. When I found him, he was lying on the ground and had twisted the halter so tightly that I could hardly get access to it. He was breathing hard and was clearly terrified but fortunately no serious harm was done.

We were lucky that nothing worse happened, but I have no doubt about the importance of removing halters. Susan Ten Pas llfarm@pobox.com

Two adult llamas and one cria were shipped from Oregon to here to board with us. The two adults had ill-fitting halters which were only on them for the two-three day trip. They both had raw sores under the jaws. And, llamas need not only to chew, but YAWN! comfortably. If the noseband on a halter moves or pulls on the skin of the nose when the llama chews, the noseband is too tight. Bobra Goldsmith rkymtllamas@seqnet.net in CO

A few years ago a fellow named Peter Illyn, the Public relations and Marketing Manager for the ILA, told a very sad and tragic story about leaving a halter on his packer llama.

It seems that Peter and his llama went packing up in the mountains, had been gone for awhile and upon returning Peter wanted to reward his dearly loved llama for a job well done. Peter staked him out on the lawn with lots of lush green grass for him to eat and a bucket of water for him to drink. In the morning Peter went out and the llama was dead. The halter had slipped down over the soft part of his nose and sometime during the night he suffocated.

This does not happen with a proper fitting halter, but one more reason to not leave the halter on with the llama unattended. Paul Wade swanlake@ONE.NET in OH