I would rather do back flips in the port-a-john than fight horses to get their feet worked on. In all the years of working horses I have had some really easy horses and some very hard ones when it came to farring. Back in Iowa, Ol' Tony Kuehn taught me enough that I could trim hooves and do some basic things. When in Indiana I again had pretty disciplined ponies and I could do most of the work myself. Then I move to Illinois and I haven't been able to get these horses to cooperate at all.
The team that we have now is Bob and Sue. If you ever want to meet Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde I can introduce you. It really isn't their fault that 98% of the time they are the best team in the world but when it comes time to trim feet they are just the opposite. I think a lot of it comes from them being Amish horses. For the Amish, when a job needs to be done there isn't a lot of coaxing. It is either do it or else.
To be as safe as we can for both the people and the animals, we use shoeing stocksThis keeps the animal upright and protects the farrier from getting kicked. I have to tell you, there is nothing like asking a one ton animal to "give you a foot". We are just so lucky to have found one of the best farriers in the business. Salvador worked at one of Julie's barns shoeing riding horses. He agreed to come take a look at ours and had routinely come 4-5 times a year to help with the Herculean task. Salvador is different than most all other farriers in that he has never once laid a hard hand on the horses or even cursed. That last one is really surprising since they have sure given him reason to.
Well we can forget about working their feet for another 3 months. Then it will be time to do it all over again. ugh!
