# Farrier Thread



## ducks4you (Apr 8, 2010)

How many farriers have you had over the years? :/ Including my SD farrier, that I only see every 5 years or so, I have had 5 farriers over 25 years.  (I was hijacking another thread, so I'm starting this one.) _to quote myself _ In case you didn't read it, I NOW have an Amish farrier, that I have been doing business with for about 4 years.  I got so tired of losing my farrier every few years.  They would quit because of a bad back, or go to a different job--I wanted someone who would keep at it as long as I kept my horses.  I paid them all on time, no bounced checks, And, my horses are ALL good with their feet!!  ...go figure...
After a year of my DD and I both working on one foot at a time (I TOLD you my horses were GOOD with their feet!)--_how_ many of us does it really take to "change a lightbulb"  --it was nice to find a man who wanted to make this his lifetime career.

Anybody else want to chime in with their thoughts or stories?


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## meme (Apr 8, 2010)

I had two for the horse we had for two years.


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## patandchickens (Apr 8, 2010)

I have lived so many different places in the past 25 years, I don't think I can *count* how many farriers I've used.

IMO the hardest thing about moving to a new area is usually finding a good farrier. The lousy ones far far outnumber the good ones, if you ask me -- and by "good" I mean "not harming the horse" -- and while a good vet is hard to find TOO, at least you can go elsewhere on the rare occasions you need better vet help, whereas you need a good farrier every 6 weeks forever 

There are SO few good farriers out there, it is really disturbing to me. Actually the guy I'm using now -- who is probably one of the best two I've ever used, in terms of how well he serves the horses' feet and soundness -- is mainly a gaited show horse farrier, believe it or not. But he KNOWS horse mechanics and he KNOWS feet and he believes that horses should be barefoot if there is no compelling reason otherwise; and he does a great job of keeping my guys' feet balanced and in one piece, despite crappy TB feet as his basic material to work with here. If he retires -- and he is not young nor 100% healthy -- I honestly might just stop owning horses, as I cannot find anyone else around here I want to work on my animals :/

(Another thing in his favor: despite shoeing horses for probably forty years now, he has no back or knee problems. I have noticed a strong association between poor farriers and physical problems in them. I am not sure why, and there *are* exceptions (esp. from injuries sustained by being flung across an aisle by a buttheaded horse), but the farriers that understand good HUMAN mechanics do seem to have a good handle on good EQUINE mechanics too... )

JMHO,

Pat


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## Horsiezz (Apr 8, 2010)

Haha yes thanks for starting this!


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## miss_thenorth (Apr 8, 2010)

In the three or so years we have had horses, we had two farriers.  One always said he was coming over and wouldn't show.  The second was always on time, but i wasn't happy with her trimming.  Even when I voiced my concerns, she said there were no problems, which ended up with my one horse being practically lame.  

Then i found a barefoot trimmer, and i am so glad I did!  She got into barefoot trimming to save her own horses life, and she knows what she's doing and my Jiggs is doing wonderful now.


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## adoptedbyachicken (Apr 8, 2010)

I got into barefoot trimming myself due to the farriers of my area.  I got so sick and tired of waiting for them to show up!  I have well behaved horses that they say they love working on but that they can't rely on their other clients to be on time or not give them an extra horse they did not book so they come to me 2 or 3 hours late.  Sorry my time is worth something, usually sleep!  As a shfit worker if I was at the barn waiting on a farrier I was not napping.

I had some great farriers and some bad ones, but too many overall I agree, they come and go.  Few stay long.  

So one day there I was with 4 horses to trim for barefoot only, and waited 3.5 hours for a gal to get there, she was mad at her previous client when she did show up, unloaded on me (not that I did not understand, but sheesh it's not my fault either) and while she had been a great farrier to my horses to this point she did a horrific trim on them.  Her emotions showed to the horses and in her trim.  The whole time I was waiting I wondered why I did not do this myself, I used to do my own as a teen so now that I'm not jumping and don't need shoes why am I paying someone else to wait for them?????

I drove home overtired and mad, got right on the internet and got the books, videos and tools ordered.  I have not had a farrier do them since. I have done a couple of barefoot trim clinics, one clinic included professional easyboot fitting and types for riding use, hired a mentor that checked all my trims for 2 years, and I have never looked back.  My chronically lame horse is NOT anymore, he healed barefoot, something both 2 Vets and many farriers told me would never happen.  All my distance riding is fine barefoot unless really rocky, then I boot up.  My costs are about $60 a year in equipment for trimming, now for 9 horses, and boots last many years, depending on how you use them.  I have one set of 4 that fit 3 of my horses and are now 3 years old, not half worn out.


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## sterlng&sierra (Apr 8, 2010)

In my memory, we've had two farriers at our place. We have always had our horses barefoot, so our horses have all generally had sound feet. Our current Farrier is great; he loves to gossip (our only horse gossip around here), he gets the job done correctly and fairly quickly, and he's great with the horses who aren't so great with their feet (due to youth or plain attitude). However, my mother tells me that the farrier before him was terrible; messed up angles and claimed that our donky had "laminitis" which he did not have. Needless to say, he left pretty quick. 

For a little while, we switched from our current farrier to a "natural hoofmanship" barefoot farrier, as I like to call her. She was slow, but seemed to do an OK job. However, she treated me like I was stupid (yes I am 16, but I am nowhere near stupid). I kept getting icky vibes off her when she and I were trimming alone, like she was giving me a cold shoulder or something. She also did not use the farrier's equipment like hoof stands or hoof knifes, just a hoof pick, a rasp, and nippers, and she would balance the hoof on her knee or foot to trim. She trimmed their hooves back pretty far, but not enough to make them lame. She also treated thrush like it was the *worst* possible thing a horse could ever get, and wnt kinda crazy on us for having all of our horse with thrushy feet in the spring. It is impossible to prevent springtime thrush wher I live, because the spring paddock is usually mud until late May.

Unfortunately, she had very little patience for our difficult horses (our weanlings and tempermental mares). When our boss mare was testing boundaries and pulling her feet away, since the farrier wouldn't hold on to the hoof between her legs like most farriers, the mare could get away with it. This made the farrier mad, and eventually she hit our mare in the belly with a rasp and told me to ground tie her (which our mare has never done before). She also messed up the angles on our weanlings'  feet. Needless to say, she was quickly fired, and our current farrier rehired. I did miss my gossip, and the horses missed their good hoof angles. When you've got a good thing going, stick with it!


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## fadetopurple (Apr 8, 2010)

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## lupinfarm (Apr 8, 2010)

We've gone through a lot of farriers. As Pat said there are a lot of sketchy or bad farriers out there and you kind of have to sift through them to find the good ones. 

We started off using the barns farriers, but soon realized no one knew how to trim our horses hooves. Pal had huge pie plate, flat feet, no heel. That and we ran into a bunch of farriers who wouldn't trim him.

While we had him we went through maybe 5 popular and known farriers before we found Wes Goff who was the only farrier to date that was able to get Pal's feet to respectable angles and keep him sound solidly. Sadly he was murdered about a year after he started trimming Pal. 

Then we went through probably 5 more male and female farriers.

Running total is 11 farriers

We no longer have Pal but with Luna and Mylie I've had 3 farriers thus far, all great farriers but aside from Becky the two best farriers are extremely hard to get out to trim because for half the year they show their horses and one owns a riding school. My newest farrier who I plan on sticking with, Dan, is going to be starting Luna in a corrective trimming plan so we can hopefully get her angles down! 

So in my 10 years of owning horses we've had approx. *15 farriers*. Yikes.


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## twentynine (Apr 8, 2010)

Have had a horse for 4 months.

Two farriers that actually showed up.

Maybe like a half dozen more that we called, and either they never showed up, did not return our call, or flat out said they were to busy, or because I only had one horse they were not interested, or because I don't have a trailer to go to them.

I swear if'n I was 20 years --- no maybe even 10 years younger, I'd be going to school to learn how to do farrier work. Next thing is I'd put most of these yahoos out of business, just by being polite, showing up, and punctuality.

Shucks I don't even mind if they are late, just use the phone and let me know.


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## lupinfarm (Apr 8, 2010)

We've never had a problem with lateness or not showing up, just with getting them back again. They all seem to show! I'm hoping I've found the right fit with this new farrier, he's a barefoot trimmer and farrier/blacksmith and his wife is a barefoot trimmer as well.


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## michickenwrangler (Apr 9, 2010)

I've had about 4 different farriers since I've owned my horse. I used Farrier 1 while I was working/boarding at a small ranch and he was their regular farrier so it made sense that I used him. Competent, dependable, no problems. I moved down near Flint for a few months to help with a boarding stable there. Turns out the farrier there had been my horse's farrier from before I bought her.  Then we returned back to the small ranch.

After the ranch was sold, my horse and I moved to a different stable where one of the owners is a farrier. While he is very skilled, he always tends to put the barn horses to the back of his to-do list behind outside clients so my horse always ends up getting done a few weeks later than I want. Luckily, because we do the distance riding and she is barefoot with excellent feet, she only needs to be trimmed every 12-15 weeks.

Last year, I had a job down state and took Izzie with me. Luckily, another distance rider/farrier lived nearby and he did her feet while we were down there.


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## ducks4you (Apr 9, 2010)

fadetopurple said:
			
		

> A few years later I finally wised up and started doing some actual research. Now I have a $160 pair of nippers, a sharpener, fresh rasps, two hoof knives (that get used!), and most importantly, somewhat of a clue what I'm doing. I found an awesome farrier who has come out and shown me some things, and will answer my questions through email. My horses' hooves aren't perfect, but their issues are minimal and I learn something new every time I work on them.


Mine are the cheap ones that you started with.  Boy, I'll bet your horses and now PERFECT with their feet manners!!


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## MatthewsHomestead (Jun 23, 2018)

All these reasons and experiences are exactly why I am becoming my own barefoot farrier. I've called and called so many.... No answer or they want to charge way more than I know is reasonable. Just because this is my first time owning my own horse doesn't mean I'm stupid people. So spent about $150 on my own tools and have my vet, some awesome websites, books, YouTube tutorials, and another local DIY horse owner backing me up. Plus the one nice farrier that was booked up said he was willing to come out from time to time to check my work. Thank God. It's crazy out there!


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