Need opinions of farriers work **Angle pics added**

[iris_surreal_euphoria]

I am so frustrated right now. I need some outside opinions on a farriers' work. Seems like the last few times he's been over he's been rushed. I don't feel like he's done a good job on the donkeys... and that's a major problem. Some have hoof problems and need very good work done. I like this guy as a person but I am questioning his work.

First both my horses were throwing shoes every few weeks. No problem.. with a little research I decided barefoot is fine.

But here's the problem... He trimmed my mare about a week and a half ago and this is her feet now.

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I'm kind of mad b/c I am nervous about riding her like this... she is just so uneven and chipping.

Her feet are great.. everytime I ask about the moisture level ect. the answer is they are great. Farriers I've used before complemented her on her nice feet. She used to hold her shape well and never cracked ect. I used to have to pull shoes when trimming came b/c she would just hold them. I have never seen her feet this bad.

I've also noticed she HATES this guy. I can pick her feet up and play with them all day.. this guy looks at them and she freaks.

I would like your opinions...am I overreacting? Could all this chipping be something I'm doing? Thanks in advance.

[jjsimsez]

im no expert but from the pic her feet dont look angled right.throwing shoes,etc.if you lived in northern indiana id ask if we had the same guy.no kidding i just fired my farrier last week.both shod horses had loose shoes.wasnt trimming enough off.after 6 weeks always were a couple horses that just didnt need trimmed.(ya right)id listen to your horse and that gut feeling.sucks my farrier was a heck of a nice guy but the feet are important.as far as riding what does your horse say?ouchy or seem sore when walking?if she seems ok then id ride.but watch stones and hard surface.that will prob chip hooves more.id def shop around for next trim.

[iris_surreal_euphoria]

She seems ever so slightly 'off', and that's why we didn't ride tonight. I wouldn't want to go anywhere if my feet were like that.The angle looks funny to you as well? I think he is just not taking enough off and not taking the time to balance the hoof.

[jjsimsez]

then i wouldnt ride either.id def get someone else.its so inferiating.epecially when you pay good money to have job done right.i spent 200 on shoes for hubby and i to go to brown county.3 days after shoes put on we leave and find all 8 shoes loose.that gets expencive.we ended up pulling back shoes on both horses.wait till next week then im gonna call someone out to fix his ahem **** up!

[jjsimsez]

if you look at my avatar you can see where he didnt take off enough toe on my mares front feet.thats last weeks pic.at brown county.5 days b4 pic she was trimmed n shoed.

[reiningfan]

Loose shoes are not always the farriers fault. Things like changes in moisture can even loosen shoes. Bad angles, too long and too short feet are a farrier's fault, but loose shoes can't be blamed solely on the farrier.
As for your horse with the chipping hooves, get a new farrier in to do it's hooves fast. Before it's not just a bit of chipping, but a chunk broken off. Happened to us. Not a fun recovery.

[cindyf]

I'm not an expert here but I am very concerned with her angles. She looks "even" all the way around. She has no toe so to speak of and all heel, also she is very short!!! Again no expert, but give her hooves some time to grow more than get someone else out to clean her up and shape them properly. The chipping and stuff is fine, they will do that in the summer more so because of stomping for flies and he may not have filed them good. I would go with someone else though, these do not look right to me.

[Hideaway]

Call me silly but how can you guys see the angles from a front on shot? Honestly I don't see the chipping being the farriers fault. Chipping has nothing to do with a job unless it was like that right after he did them in which case I would have told him off.

The chipping is from being outside stomping flies. There's not much your farrier can do about it. You can keep the horse in during the day, put shoes back on or put boots on. If your horse is pulling shoes it could be the farriers fault but just as much a horses conformation. Make sure the shoe isn't too big and sticking out the back. Bell boots can help a horse from yanking off shoes.

In most cases you don't want a farrier taking the heel off or your horse. Balancing yes, but unless the horse has a club foot the heel doesn't need to be hacked off. You also don't want too much toe as it's too hard on the tendons.

If you're not happy with your farrier, switch but I don't see this as being all his fault. JMO

[cindyf]

http://www.thehorseshoof.com/hoofangles.html

Maybe this website will help.

[Lady_MCSE]

I'm inclined also to say that we can't see much about angles from these shots . . . to get a better idea of angles and the total trim, it's really best to get straight ahead (camera on the ground, not held) and side shots each side. In fact, there's actually a sticky thread in this section about how to post hoof photos.

I'm also inclined to agree that a chipping is much more of a concern in the summertime due to flies. The horses stomp around all day trying to get rid of them . . . thus the feet take much more of a beating.

As to the farrier always seeming rushed and loose shoes and so forth, it sure sounds like you're not terribly happy with him. If you have the option of trying someone else, then why not? Is it likely your regular one would actually call you up and say "Hey, you're overdue" . . . I mean you don't have to burn your bridge with him by telling him off or anything . . . just try someone else and see what happens.

Be very very careful about what you say about your previous farrier! It may make you feel better to talk about your concerns, but try to stick strictly to what the new one needs to know to get the job done, not what you think has been done wrong in the past. If you're really lucky, the new one will do what you hope for, and you'll have the old one to fall back on if you're not satisfied with the new one either.

[KatieMae]

I'm no expert on hoove angles, etc. But I'll give you this little bit of info...

I had an 17yo mare suddenly go lame on me.. This lameness popped up the day after she was "trimmed" by the ferrier, who, by the way, was extremely rushed... Well, the original lameness turned out to be an abscess that the ferrier didn't catch... I soaked, and medicated the hoof where the abscess was... A week later, the abscess was gone but my mare was still horribly lame. I posted pictures on the UDDB for some people to give insight... Every one of the ferriers on the site told me her angles were wrong. Interresting.

While dwelling on who to call to fix this problem, my mare continued to stay lame, and started to stand as if she was foundering... I paniced, but realized that she was rocking back on her heels to relieve the pressure that was apparently on her toes from the awful trim... Her hooves looked alot like the ones you pictured above. By the next day, her tendons were so swollen that I had to stand her in poultice for 48 hours, with cold hosing in between.

I then called up a very experienced ferrier who I hadn't heard anything bad about other than "he drops off the face of the earth from time to time." Okay, I can deal with that... He shows up, takes a look at her front hooves, and is completely disgusted. He pointed out her heels, which were incredibly uneven, and also the bruising in her toes, where the weight was being distributed unevenly... With the go ahead, he whipped out his handy dandy measurement tools, and started working on her... He evened out her heels, checked the length of her hooves (which at the time were about 2-3/4" long mind you) and told me to use Venice Turpentine mixed with DMSO 2x a week to harden them up... (I would suggest trying this if they are chipping... The VT hardens them up and helps keep the chipping down.)

I kept him as my ferrier. He was excellent with my mare, and really knew what he was talking about... My suggestion to you is to get a second opinion.. If I hadn't have done so, I would have called my vet thinking that my mare was foundering... When I sold her, her feet were over 3" long, incredibly strong, and she hadn't abscessed since then...

Sorry for the incredibly long post, but it just reminds me alot of what happened with my mares hooves.. Good luck!

[fishing_trex]

To see if she's trimmed at the proper angle, you'd need to include a shot that showed her pastern angle.
http://www.equipodiatry.com/hoofangl.htm

[iris_surreal_euphoria]

I really appreciate your quick replies everyone! I see what you are saying about the shoes... but what I can't understand is every other time she has held shoes... both horses just threw them within a couple of weeks of having them placed. I can't speak for the gelding.. this is our first year with him.

I understand about the cracking now.. makes alot of sense. I just don't understand why her feet have never done this before Even with that awful drought last year.

You guys have got me concerned about the angle now. I have one pic on my computer I took last night that shows it better.. I'll get better pics tonite by placing the camera on the ground.

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What do you think? I worry b/c he did no measuring with any tools, just trimmed them up.


Don't worry... I have NO intentions of burning bridges or badmouthing!

[CatsTack]

I'm a barefoot trimmer.

Here's what I see: The heels are indeed too long. Typically overall hoof length is 'round 3.5 inches depending on the horse. The chipping is caused by one of 2 things or both, the hoof wall was left too long and/or the hoof wall wasn't properly rolled.

Maybe try asking your farrier why these things are happening. Definitely visit the sites above. There's a bunch of others too, just do a search on "barefoot trim".

I usually don't measure the feet of any horseys I trim, however some folks take measurements every time they trim and keep a record of measurements. This can be really good if a pathology is being treated. I like to take a bunch of pictures of the 'bad' foot or feet. I've found that pictures don't lie.

Could you post pictures of the underside of the feet? That would be neat to see, too.

[Lady_MCSE]

In my relatively brief experience with horses (coming up on 3 years of owning my first), I have used primarily one farrier for most of that time. He's been doing it for 20+ years and I always thought he did a good job, and he got really great reviews from everyone else I talked to. We left my draft with bare feet because I wasn't using him extensively (for much of anything, but that's another story). That trimmer never once used any tools to measure, nor have any of the other farriers I've seen who do horses at the barn I was boarding at.

The thing I learned from that though is that just plain going barefoot and doing a natural trim are two different things. He was taking length off, and the angles were mostly OK (not perfect once I had Xrays taken), but he was not rolling the edges significantly.

Sooooo . . . I ended up taking a class on how to trim your own horse using natural methods, and have read just about everything I could find on barefoot trims, and am finding that I actually LIKE trimming myself!

I'm sorry, guess I got off track there. My initial point was that just pulling shoes off is not the same as a true natural barefoot trim.

If you previously left shoes on all the time, then you would not have seen chipping due to fly stomping. (Or not as much anyway). Flies are worst in the summer of course, so even if you pulled the shoes last fall, you wouldn't see the chipping so much until the fly season gets heavy.

[Lady_MCSE]

One other thing I'm curious about, but not sure if I should bring up . . . see the heavy horizontal ridges or bands? That's a sign that something has changed in his diet, and if I'm not mistaken (please correct me if I'm wrong!) ridges will show up like that after episodes of founder. Any insight on his nutritional history? (i.e. did he change from pasture to drylot or vice versa, change barns, etc.) I'm not saying this has anything to do with the chipping at this point in time, but hoof supplements could help strengthen the overall hoof.

[Range]

Yes, nutritional changes can cause that. They can also cause problems in the hoof that were not apparent before, such as excessive chipping and breaking.

None of us can truly say what's going on with the hoof because we are not there in person to see the whole horse and how the horse travels, how the shoulder ties in, and what the pastern angles look like.

I have a horse with a perfect trim whose feet are chipping and breaking like that due to the hard ground and the flies.

Also, shoes come loose for all sorts of reasons. A horse that's shod while it's feet are damp will often come up with loose shoes when the weather dries out. Excessive damp and then dry weather will do that, too.

[iris_surreal_euphoria]

Catstack--- I wish you were closer!!! Thanks everyone for your advice. Yes, Rebel rescently had a diet change. She has slowly switched over to pasture from hay. Intresting you can tell that by the lines.

One thing I have noticed... now, correct me if I'm wrong... Rebel seems to have upright pastures... in turn she would need a bit more toe to help that angle? Am I correct in my thinking?