The Art of Wrangling: Keeping Your Horses Close

picket rope is a soft threequarter inch or larger diameter rope 20 to 50 feet long attached to a tree post or peg on one end and the horses foot on the other. It should have a swivel on the foot collar and be able to slide freely around the tree or post.
A bowline knot will keep the post end from tightening so it is easily undone. We find that attaching the rope to a foot far safer than attaching to the halter as the horse is more likely to become tangled and possibly choked when tied to the halter. I realize that many riders successfully tie picket lines to their horses halters for feeding but once I left a big palomino gelding to feed in a meadow for a few hours and returned to find him down and tangled and once was enough. Never leave a horse unattended while on a picket line for more than an hour or so and never overnight.
Be sure there are no obstructions for the horse to get tangled in and enough feed to keep him well fed. Riders often picket the dominant horses or the ones that like to wander in order to keep all horses close but rotate your picket horses so that they all have a chance to free graze.
High Lines    
High lines are another effective way to control and feed horses. A high line is just that a line tied above the horses heads between two trees. Tie your horse to the high line above long enough so it can eat the hay or feed provided but short enough so it cannot get a leg over the lead rope. We recommend commercial metal fasteners about eight to ten feet apart for each horse
Horse Bells
One day while deep in the remote Spatsizi country near Smithers BC I roamed helplessly about following tracks trying to figure out where the horses had gone. The horse tracks walked out in many directions from camp and eventually ended. After returning to camp from a fruitless mile walk tired and distressed I caught the slight tink of a horse bell. And there 75 yards from my tent behind a few big spruce trees were the three culprits watching me with smiles on their faces. Just think if they did not have bells on that tink would not have happened.
Horse bells have been used for hundreds of