Three Reasons to Trim Your Own Horses Hooves

There are a number of good reasons to trim your own horses hooves, I will cover the top three reasons you should consider learning how to trim your horses hooves. Let me start out by saying if your horse is calm while being trimmed, never has lameness problems, and you can afford to hire a competent farrier who shows up when scheduled, read no farther. However if any of the mentioned items sound familiar to you, read on.

Is your horse comfortable and calm while being trimmed by your farrier? Some horses are some horses are not comfortable with strangers being near them, this can be caused by a number of reasons here are just a few. At some time in the horses past they have encountered a bad experience while their feet have been worked on, the reasons for a bad experience can vary from, a lack of good halter training, to distractions occurring while the horse is being trimmed.

In my 19 years of working as a professional farrier, I never once had a problem with the horse that had been halter trained properly. The horse knows how to stand still, relax, and is easy to control on the ground. If anything occurs out of the ordinary, the horse has a thinking portion in their brain not just a reactive portion. Horses must be taught to think, they naturally react, so this reaction shows up sometimes in the hoof trimming process but really has nothing to do with trimming, it has to do with adequate training.

If your horse some times lame or tender in the feet, especially after being trimmed, you might get suspicious. The old adage no pain no gain just does not fly here, there is no earthly reason why any horse should be tender or lame after a hoof trimming. Now you should cut the farrier some slack, if there is no apparent over trimming, and this is one of the first times this particular horse been trimmed by them. The next trimming remind your farrier, to not trimmed so close. If the results are the same, maybe it's time to try something new.

If you're farrier does not show up on time for your scheduled horse trim, and you have better things to be doing than standing in the driveway holding your horse, gazing down the road, and looking at your watch, maybe you should either get a new farrier, are perhaps learn to do it yourself. It might feel real good to tell the farrier, when they show up in the next day or two or calls; you know we had an appointment, my horse needed trimming, so I had to do it myself. That farrier will probably show up on time next time, if you call them back, that is.

Maybe you owe it to your horse, to at least learn how to trim your own horse, so you can evaluate if your horse is or is not receiving proper hoof care. If you do decide to trim your own horse, you can usually pay for all that necessary tools in about a year, from then on you are saving money and getting the satisfaction of providing a horse with proper hoof care.

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