Alternative designs
In many of the pictures used here you’ll have seen that there are nylon sacks being
used. This is an adaptation of the original all sisal sack design. Because many of the people
in Ethiopia are using these packsaddles for carrying water, they found that the sisal sack
allowed the water to pass straight through, soaking the hay or straw inside, making it heavy
and causing it to rot very quickly. We worked on that and came up with an adaptation that
involves completely separating the two sides of the sack, and replacing the top side with a
similar piece taken from a nylon sack. This has had two knock on effects. The overall cost of
the materials decreased since nylon sacks are generally cheaper than sisal, and we found
that it is also wears better in some cases.
If using this under a wooden frame then you’d probably need to make the bars a little
finer, or the saddle frame ends up being very high and unstable. With a good framed saddle
you wouldn’t really be using this packsaddle in this form at all, you’d be using a blanket,
numnah, or saddle cloth - we only use this because most of the wooden framed pack
saddles in Ethiopia are not very donkey friendly and there needs to be substantial
protection.
If there are no Jute or sisal sacks available then you can make it with the nylon sacks,
but you should line the underneath, the side against the donkey, with some natural
material such as a woollen blanket, or heavy duty cotton.
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