broncstompinben Report post Posted April 7, 2011 I just aquired a holstien hide and got it fleshed and dehaired, and it is a wonderful hide. It has no brands or major blemishes and it is HUGE!!! My question for you is will an old holstien hide make a reata, or should i use it for something elses less stressful, reins, bosals, hobbles, ect? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nod4Eight Report post Posted April 8, 2011 What was the condition of the cow it came from? Doesn't BG say colt hide makes excellent riata, but an old skinny cow does too? That's from memory though... It would be great to see someones riata project start to finish on here. I was wanting to try one this winter but it slipped away so fast! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
broncstompinben Report post Posted April 8, 2011 the cow it came from was an old dried up milk cow. there was very little fat on the hide and now that its hanging up it really looks like a great hde... the best out of all the ones I have done so far. I have already knocked my first reata out of the way, but there are several areas that i need to improve on, after watching Four Strands of Rawhide, my first one only ended up being about fourty feet long but this hide is twice as big as the angus calf i used for my last one. I have always heard that jerseys make the best reata, and i also have a jersey hide but it had more fat on it and it has a great big hip brand right in the way, I had intention to make a reata out of it until I got a hold of this holstien hide, and in my opinion the hostein is a better hide, and i don't think the alternating colors will efffect the reata at all, but i'm still fairly new at this reata braiding stuff, and any other advice would be great. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
want2braid Report post Posted April 13, 2011 Just a thought! I was asking around and found that some guys just cut the good discs out of a hide, instead of spiraling out the whole hide! That way you don't cross the back bone and you get 1 long even strand! It increases the yield. YOu may get 1 or 2 strands out of each disk depending on the size, and can use 2 hides to make one so long as they match in width, depth. bevel! Wayne Beven from Canada said that Holstein makes good rawhide, but you don't want to spiral through pigment change of white and black. The white /black on its own is good hide , but they just have two different feels. He said to try and get one that is 80% one main color and avoid the others. Maybe you can get discs of areas? I know cutting discs out of the last hide increased my yield! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
