A Visit From the Farrier

The farrier came today to trim the horses' hooves. It's a big job when there are this many horses who need trims. Even though our farrier does the job efficiently and quickly, it still took a few hours to get through everybody.

It's always a challenge to the horses, who are pretty much handled only by me every day, to suddenly have a stranger come and do things to their feet. Some take it calmly, others fidget, jump around, or try to pull away.

Some that normally behave well for me (Senter, Shane) were not very nice with the farrier. Others, who sometimes are uncomfortable having their feet handled (Maggie, Torchsong, Callista) did quite well.

Libby even had her very first hoof trim today. Her hooves are so tiny compared to, say, Boo's enormous feet. She did pretty well for her first time. I didn't try to have the other three weanlings trimmed, as I just didn't think they were ready for that step yet. I'll work with them more to prepare them before next time.

Here's our farrier, Stan Rudacil, using a hoof knife on Bonnie's hoof to trim away some of the excess:

Next, he uses the nippers to trim the wall of the hoof, especially where her toe had grown long.

Finally, he smooths out the edges with a rasp:

Repeat with all four hooves. And then the pedicure is done!

Want to see it in more detail? Here's a video clip of Char getting her hooves trimmed.