finding a carrot stick/stick and string

Soooo, what do you think us Oldsters used waaaaaay back in the 50's - 60's" before the marwahluss Pat Parelli invented that expensive carrot stick?

A green stick off a tree works perfectly fine but, how about the buggy whip if you want to get fancy? Yes, it was still a Rule of Thumb that we broke horses to both ride and drive but by gosh there really was a school bus to carry us to school. The driving part was purely for pleasure - honest

If you want to get fancy, tie a live carrot to the end of the buggy whip

This is where I could really get on my negative NH soapbox --- when it sadly comes down to where someone thinks a horse can't be trained unless they've got a magic carrot stick that costs a lot of money. How much ARE those things anyway?

For the "stiff" carrot stick, I use a fibreglass post (for electric fence; cost $2 or 3 and is light weight) with a bit of duct tape to cover the pointy end. When required, a string is easily duct taped to it as well.

Cattle sorting stick Jolt 54 in Sorting Pole - 2224286 | Tractor Supply Company

Hi HorseLover2011, I sell "carrot sticks/handy sticks"


It is manufactured by Tough-1 and is slightly lighter than some other sticks out there, which make it easier to handle. Please feel free to send me a private message

Also, before I started selling Natural Horsemanship Equipment, I found much cheaper than buying from the clinicians.

We're not really buying from the clinicians but their sponsors. They wouldn't be sponsoring these good folks if there wasn't a bunch of money to be made on the equipment. I still say a thin willow is the best way to go, for me there's no going back. My homemade carrot stick, my dressage whip and my lunge whip have been idle for months.

I have an old broken Ugly Stick fishing pole that lost a battle to a car door. A bit of flame pattern duck tape and a string braided out of para-cord and I'm all set. It has a nice formed foam hand grip and is light, yet stiff enough to be effective.

TRAINING STICK & SAVVY STRING FITS ANDERSON & PARELLI | eBay

I picked up a bunch at an auction last month. All of my students got them as gifts, I bought them in a lot and paid a buck a piece. :)

Not that I have any suggestions but I thought it was funny that I opened this thread to find five carrots to put in my basket!

I have to agree that once you have gotten used to the stiffer sticks, buggy whips, willow switches, and dressage whips just aren't accurate enough and don't offer the same friendly feel of a back scratcher when desensitizing.

I have used all of the above including a genuine PP Cstick, and I think my Fave is the ebay knock off I bought at almost 1/2 price of PP's. The ebay version is slightly tapered and lighter, it appears to be the same stick as the one marketed by weaver leather with the Stacey Westfall endorsement found in most tack catalogs, but the Weaver string is smoother(better), I had to switch to a PP string on my ebay stick because the ebay string would pull my horse's hair when I stroked him with it.

The Weaver stick is sold at valley vet, here is a link:
Stacy Westfall Stick String Weaver Leather (Supplies Tack - Western Horse Tack - Working Training)