Thanks RC. Lots of great info. I'll look for the book ASAP. I've read bits and pieces of some others and have a couple acquaintances that have llamas that I'm sure I could use as resources. Any thoughts on where to get tack? I've heard llamahardware.com is pretty good.
Craigslist is your friend. Prices on new stuff are high.
There are 2 basic kinds of saddles, soft and hard. You want hard. They'll have some kind of rigid frame and should have some way to tie stuff to them. Most are a sawbuck of some sort, either wood or aluminum.
Most soft saddles have no way to tie stuff on top. Most panniers I've found for hard saddles have a couple big loops that you just drop over the rigid frame. Most soft saddles have specialized panniers that attach to that particular saddle. They're not versatile at all. It can be a trick to firmly tie antlers on top of a soft saddle. With a hard saddle, you can hang you day pack on one side and your rifle on the other just by looping the rifle sling and pack straps over the saddle's top bows. You can't do that with most soft saddles. You have to tie them on.
When I got started, I got super lucky, for me anyway, not for him. I found a CL ad from Reno for 4 saddles, panniers, etc. In NV, all deer and elk tags are by lottery and they're very hard to draw. This guy was an avid big game hunter but he'd been 10 years without drawing a tag of any kind. He gave up, sold his llamas, put all of his tack on CL, and went with going out of state with outfitters every year. I got in on his closeout sale and I bought everything he had. It's been invaluable. The saddles were a decker type and have been great. I needed a couple more but they aren't made any more so I duplicated them and made 2 more. It was easier than it sounds.
