| Last week I mentioned the importance of
finding a farrier who is able to do specialty work you require,
or willing to learn more about it. I personally feel that
a good farrier is one who continually looks for ways of upgrading
his or her skills. This isn’t to say that farriers
who don’t go on to work on specialty situations aren’t
any good, not at all! These shoers are extremely handy for
the high percentage of perfectly normal horses out there.
I’ve been lucky over the years with many horseshoers
who started with a good school and then went on to attend
clinics and seminars. Some have embraced new discoveries,
while others have been skeptical, but all of them have at
least seen the new things and have formed their opinions
from that information. I have had one farrier who competed
on the national blacksmithing team, and another who almost
enjoys the creating of items on his forge more than the horseshoeing
part of the job! Still another one heads off mot every year
to work with other farriers, learning under their tutelage.
You can’t get any better than a knowledgeable farrier
with an unquenchable thirst for more knowledge!!
It tends to be a personal preference on whether a shoers
chooses hot or cold shoeing, but most believe that hot shoeing
allows for a better fitted shoe. They’ll admit too
that banging on hot steel is much easier than clanging away
on cold metal! Some horses have a hard time standing for
hot shoeing, however, and if yours is one of these, you may
wish to ask if the farrier will shoe your horse cold.
The same preference can apply to whether or not a shoer prefers
to use keg shoes or make his or her own shoes. A keg shoe
(or store bought, pre-shaped shoe) will work well for a horse
with average feet, but if it needs a fair amount of shaping
to fit your horse, the farrier may choose to shape a shoe
from scratch instead. Some farriers enjoy the shaping as
part of the job, and prefer to make their own, while some
shoers use solely keg shoes in their business. Neither way
is wrong or right, but more a matter of preference.
There are a few more considerations to choosing a good farrier,
which I’ll talk about next week.
If you have comments or suggestions along the way, please
share with me at kristim@hiway16.com
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June
24,
2003
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