Pack animal

Pack animals (including pack animals or beasts of burden ) are still used in difficult areas for carrying loads and are not to be confused with mounts. In addition to carrying loads for life support, such as transport of water in deserts and arid areas with the help of donkeys, transport of goods Dromedarkarawanen, etc. can be found more and more in the leisure sector a new use of pack animals by transporting equipment (tents, sleeping bags, camping equipment ), clothing and food on longer and shorter hikes and long-distance migration over large distances. For this form of pack animal use which has long used in Europe horses, mules and donkeys are the one used, but also lamas who were indispensable in the Andean regions as a pack animal and are, as well as goats, their use in the USA and Europe only in the 1980s started, which can be detected as pack animals, however, much earlier in the regions of the Himalayas.

In the early Neolithic animal exploitation by potential originated with the domestication advanced logistic facilities. These animals were initially hunting, in domesticated form they were first meat animal and then have to pack, and later train and ultimately mount. When pack animals were first used, can not be ascertained, since early findings of Pack institutions such as the Sagma ( Greek: Packsattel ) are missing. It remains unclear whether early began the 15 kg load-bearing dog as a pack animal. However, it can be assumed that people soon went over to, not only to eat the flesh of the great pets, but to make the carrying capacity of cattle, sheep and goats available.

With the beef a workhorse was domesticated at least the 9th millennium BC, which bore weights up to 100 kg. Through subsequent domestication Bactrian camel came (250 kg to 35 km / day), Dromedary ( 150 kg; 50 km / day), horse ( 150 kg; 30 km / day), donkeys (90 kg; 25 km / day), Alpaca 50 kg; 25 km / day), Llama, gaur, reindeer and yak and zebu which will support today, riding or are in largely inaccessible areas still in use as a draft animal. In earlier times, elephants were used as pack animals. For use as a pack animal several weeks of training at the beast of trust is needed to support animal handler must take and the support animal leader gets to know the properties of the support animal.

Military mules are pack animals usually referred to as mules for the mountain troops used. Forces which are yet have support animal units, the Bundeswehr, French Chasseurs alpins, Italian Alpini mountain troops ( Austria ), Swiss mountain infantry brigades, mountain troops in Peru and Chile.