Horse Farrier Care

"Hi! I'm Kelli on behalf of Expert Village. I am going to show you some techniques that I use to properly care for my horses feet. One thing that you want to do for your horse to really ensure good hoof health, is make sure you have proper farrier care. You should make sure your farrier comes on an average of every 4 to 8 weeks depending on how fast your horses feet grow. But by having proper farrier care, you can ensure that you are not overlooking any type of abscess which is an infection in the foot or any type of fungal infection in the foot. You also want to make sure especially if your horse has shoes on, that their toes don't get too long because this can lead the horse to be out of balance. It can also lead them to lose shoes if they do have shoes on which could end up ripping off their foot and could be a little bit dangerous and cause your horse to come up lame which would make it very difficult. Your farrier will know what type of shoes to put on your horse that will best suit your horse. If you will take a look at Colby's shoe here, Colby has what is called a bar shoe. So instead of your regular horse shoe which is going to be open on the back, this is a shoe that goes all the way around the foot. So this will give her better support, give her better balance if she has smaller feet and we have been trying to get her feet to grow and expand a little bit, it helps the feet kind of grow out a little bit more. There is also glue on shoes for horses whose feet are a little bit too soft to be nailed on to. You can get a glue on shoe. There are also aluminum shoes which are a little bit lighter weight for your horse that you want to have a lot of lift not be weighed down, you can get an aluminum shoe or just your regular steel shoe. So by having proper farrier care, your farrier will know what to brake for your horse and how to keep your horses feet really nice and healthy."