hobble chain

plural hobble chains · alternative hobble-chain

1. AustraliaChain used to fetter horses or cattle.

   He hums a song of someone / He hopes to marry soon; / And hobble-chains and camp-ware / Keep jingling to the tune.

   1889, Henry Lawson, “The Ballad of the Drover”, in Poems and Stories by Henry Lawson, Raleigh, NC: Hayes Barton Press, published 2006, page 221

   3 more examples

   According to his own statement, at about the age of seventeen, as the result of having been flogged by Grunter with a hobble-chain […] he crept on him one night and battered him with a nullah-nullah, leaving him for dead.

   1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter XI, in Capricornia, page 173

   1992, Bryan Clark, Yammatji: Aboriginal Memories of the Gascoyne, Hesperian Press, p. 111 https://books.google.ca/books?id=C_UXAQAAMAAJ&q=%22hobble-chain%22&dq=%22hobble-chain%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGtu6WvPrMAhVBSGMKHUF0BHoQ6AEIygEwHw "Old Pottsie, the boss, used to belt Yammatji with a hobble chain. He got my uncle and got the hobble chain and belted him with it. But my uncle never fell down, even when he got hit hard."

   Each bullock had a heavy leather neck-strap on, fitted with a hobble chain and swivel, and a spare rope around its neck.

   2014, Glen McLaren, Big Mobs: The Story of Australian Cattlemen, North Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Press, page 46