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Wooly Chaps

Below are wooly chaps for sale. Wooly (sometimes spelled "woolly") chaps can come in either batwing or shotgun styles.

For more information on wooly chaps please scroll down lower on this page.

Below: Wooly chaps on a WCRR (World Championship Ranch Rodeo) ranch bronc rider.

Wooly chaps on a bronc rider


From eBay

See more wooly chaps on Etsy

See more wooly chaps on eBay


About Wooly Chaps

Wooly chaps are a type of "hair on hide" chaps. The term "hair on hide" is just what it sounds like: It means that the leather was processed leaving the hair on the hide. Usually, however, the phrase hair on hide implies the leather, and hair, is from a short haired animal such as a cow.

In the case of wooly chaps, however, the leather and hair is from a much longer haired animal, such as a buffalo, bear, Angora goat, and others. Just how long the hair on a pair of wooly chaps is varies greatly according to what they are made of.

Below: A pair of hair on hide chinks made from cow leather. As you can see, the hair is quite short so they are not woolies. (They're also chinks, not chaps, but you get the idea.)

Hair on hide chinks

 

Below: Two different pairs of wooly chaps. They are both woolies, but the pair on the left is much shorter haired, and different haired, than the pair on the right.

Two cowboys wearing wooly chaps

 

Wooly chaps are worn for the same reasons working cowboys and cowgirls wear other styles of chaps: They offer protection protection from brush, trees, thorns, weather, branding irons, and other hazards inherent to the cowboy lifestyle.

Because the long hair on wooly chaps offers extra protection and insulation against cold and wet conditions they are particularly popular where winters are long and harsh.

While wooly chaps are practical, they are also very showy. For that reason they were popular with 1800s wild west show performers and Western artists. (The renowned Western artist Frederic Remington created a bronze statue titled "Wooly Chaps," also known as "The Bronco Buster." It depicts a cowboy wearing wooly chaps riding a bucking horse.) Wooly chaps are still popular today for reasons of practicality and showiness.

Below: A postcard showing a pair of wooly chaps on an unknown Canadian cowboy, circa 1917. We wish this photo was larger so we could see it better. In addition to the beautiful wooly chaps this cowboy is wearing a fancy gun rig, belt, and cuffs.

Pair of wooly chaps on a Canadian cowboy

Public domain image.

 

Below: A pair of wooly chaps photographed on display at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

White wooly chaps with black spots

Photo by Wolfgang Sauber (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons


About Buying Wooly Chaps

Below is good information to know before buying wooly chaps off of eBay or anywhere else.

 








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