© 2001 The American Long Ears Society
All Rights Reserved

Bell Tails

Longear Hair Styles:

The Donkeys and Mules of today sport their manes in a variety of styles: short and upright, long and upright, roached, hogged, trimmed, banded, or lying over. A well-trimmed mane can enhance a neck and topline, while a poorly groomed one can destroy the overall presentation. So it stands to reason then that Tails would also follow the same logic in regards to looks and functionality. Modern Mule Tails may be natural, trimmed, banged, shaved, belled, or perhaps a combination thereof. For example, shaved part way down, with 2 "bells" trimmed in the middle, ending in a long donkey-like tassel.

Bell Origins:

The origin of the bell tail originally came from the US Army when they used to "notch" the tails of their packmule strings, as a quick way to visually indicate the extent of that mule's training. For example: one bell or notch meant the mule was trained to pack, two bells meant he was trained to pack AND ride, three bells was he was trained to ride, pack AND drive, and so forth. I'm not 100% sure of the exact bell-to-training tail order, but this at least gives you an idea of what all that hoopla was about.

Today, belled tails are more of a fashion statement, as are shaved tails - that is shaving the top of mule tails in the same way as Warmbloods are.

Of Shavetails & Bell Sharps:

According to the book, "Shavetails and Bell Sharps: The History of the US Army Mule," by Emmett M. Essin, civilian packers often provided the very pack animals the military used, and as such devised a system early on that military packers used to enable them to spot new, untrained mules. When a supplier or Quartermaster presented a new pack mule or saddle mule to add to the train, the patron would order the mule's mane roached and its tail clipped, leaving only a tassel. Thus a "shavetail" was easily recognizable and always approached with caution, never from the rear. By the time the tail hairs had grown out, it had become a "bell sharp," which meant it could now take its place and report for duty at the ringing of the bell.

Incidentally enough, those same widely used descriptive terms "shavetail" and "bell sharps" were also given to army officers."

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Sculpting Bells:

To sculpt bells on a model you're customizing, begin by cutting off the plastic tail completely, inserting a wire armature to act as the tailbone, then using epoxy like martine carbone, carefully build up and sculpt in 2 or 3 tassle-like bells, taking the time to "scratch in" hair
texture before epoxy hardens. You can do this with either a toothpick, or take a small chunk of wrapped electrical wire (about 2 inches in length), the type used in home electronics or appliances, and peel back about 1 inch of the plastic/vinyl coating that surrounds the outer side. The idea is to expose enough of the tiny delicate copper strands to be able to fan it out and create a wire brush in which to "brush" on or etch the tail hair fibers directly on each belled tail.

Allow the whole works to dry and harden completely (like a day or two) before gessoing and painting. It's really pretty simple to do and well worth the effort.

(This Page last updated: March 30, 2001)