Anybody Know a Good Farrier?
Posted by Mikki on Jul 06 2007 at 10:57 pm | Tagged as: Horse Health
There are two very important people in your horse’s life, besides you. First is the vet; second is the farrier. As we’ve mentioned, we live in a small town, so service people are kind of scarce here. When we got Valentine, he needed to be re-shod (he had in fact thrown a shoe, and he was due for a trim anyway). We asked the former owner for his farrier’s name and number, which he gave us, but after several calls, the guy - we’ll call him G - wasn’t calling us back. So I found someone else on the Internet and made an appointment; the next day, G called. He was going to charge less, and already knew my horse, so I went ahead and canceled the first appointment.
On appointment day, we waited patiently at the appointed time of 9:00…and G came at about 10:30. He apologized, said he was already behind. We later learned that 9:00 is usually his first appointment for the day, so he must have put someone before us.
It’s been over a year now since G started shoeing our horses. That’s about 8 appointments. He has been at least an hour late for every one. It takes several calls and at least a week to get a hold of him. Here’s the thing, though - he’s a really nice guy, and in our inexpert opinion, does a good job of shoeing our horses. He’s shod Valentine for years (through 3 owners now) and puts up with his antics. So for a while, that outweighed the unreliability. But the last episode kind of overshadowed the good points. Valentine lost a shoe about 2 weeks after his last shoeing; we called G and made an appointment to replace that one shoe, and he never showed. He also never returned our calls about it. Unfortunately, we left for Phoenix shortly after and never had time to follow up.
After the first few months of spending days trying to get a hold of G for a regular appointment, we had realized that it was much easier to set the next appointment while he was there. So we had a pre-set appointment for June 19. G never showed. He didn’t return our calls for about a week; we missed that call, he left a voice mail saying he’d try again. That’s the last we’ve heard from him, despite a call a few days ago informing him that Moonshine is down to only one shoe and her other feet are all beat up.
So the day after our last call to G, we again prevailed on our best horse friend, Shari, for the name of her farrier. It only took him 2 days to call back, and his next open appointment was only a week away, so it looks like we might have a new farrier. (We’ll call him J, and let you know how it goes.)
Sorry for the rant…sometimes you just gotta rant. I’m thinking the farrier change was way overdue, but maybe you just have to put up with some BS if you find a decent farrier, especially in a small town. What do you all think?
It might be possible for you to learn to trim your horses hooves yourself, and/or leave them barefoot.
There are classes for horse owners available, though I don’t know if there are any in your area, where you can learn a barefoot trim. If you trim your horses hooves about every 3 weeks they won’t get long and beat up.
Here us just one site that has information about barefoot hoofcare: http://www.healthyhoof.com/
If you type barefoot hoofcare into any search engine you will find a huge number of results with some useful information.
Also, check out Karen’s site: http://easycareinc.typepad.com/karen/
Boy, you really hit a nerve with this one! I’ve owned horses for 30 years. The first 15 were at a boarding stable in Dallas, Texas. There were several farriers that came regularly, and the owners knew who was good and who wasn’t. No prob, right?
Then I moved to Warsaw, Indiana and have kept my horses at home for the last 15 years. When I first got here, finding a farrier - and a vet - was quite a challenge. My horse didn’t need anything special, but the first two farriers were letting his toes get too long and his heels were becoming underrun.
Finally, I ran across an AFA Certified Farrier and have been using him for over 10 years now. He CAN be forgetful sometimes - he has SO many things going! - but he’s always reachable, and he will come anytime if I need him.
Actually, he’s not only my farrier, but has become one of my closest friends. I’m letting my horses go barefoot these days, but they still need a knowledgeable person to trim them. Especially my 16 year old mare, Ami. She foundered on grass shortly after I found this farrier, and if not for him - and the good vet I FINALLY found - she would be dead now.
I’m not saying that only AFA Certified farriers are qualified, and I’m sure some that are certified are slackers. But, you shouldn’t have to put up with THAT much BS. G was waaaaaaaaaaay over the line in my book.
Keep us posted on how J does. Sometimes, it makes you want to tear your hair! LOL!
One of the few advantages of being at a large boarding facility is that the farrier shows up on time and does a good job otherwise he’ll lose a LOT of clients. I picked the one the trainer uses, figuring if he’s good enough for her horses, he’s good enough for mine. So far I’ve been happy, but I’ve only had him for one shoeing (shodding?) and he was on time. I also had a pretty good one in Tucson but since I was his only client at that location, he was frequently late. I have her in shoes now, but everyone tells me to take them off in the winter, otherwise they pack full of snow & ice.
Farriers can be the bane of one’s life. Back in Britain, where horse owners are obliged by law to use a “registered farrier”, those guys can make one’s life miserable. In some counties, they are little better than a mafia. You are lucky to live in a less regulated country. I’m lucky that, with 30 trail horses and a different economy to the US and the UK, I employ a farrier. Still, I need to stay on top of what he does.
You might well look at learning to trim, then using boots such as Easyboots or Old Macs (which, I am told, are better.) You might even attend a shoeing course. I’ve heard of good courses (e.g. one in Montana taking eight-ten weeks and costing about $5,000.) It would be cheaper and quicket to learn to trim. I don’t know your background. I am an engineer, so I picked up the principles of trimming and shoeing pretty quickly. Maybe you can do the same? The equine foot is surprisingly complex, but one can learn how it functions, then learn how to maintain it.
I don’t mean to sound patronising, but you seem like an intelligent, enquiring horse owner. I’m sure that, if you invest the time and money, you can learn to take excellent care of your horses’ feet.
Do have a look at wwww.hopeforsoundness.co too. It’s a useful site.