Farrier Visit

If you made it through yesterday's post, you may have thought to yourself "why on earth would you schedule the farrier to come to the barn on moving day?" Good question!

Originally we were going to move the previous Saturday, but then W got sick and we lost Hero and I lost interest in that idea. Hubs has Wednesday's off and the farrier really doesn't do weekends, so Wednesday is the only week day that typically works. Someone also might have sort of freaked out a little at the condition of Pete's feet the week before and yelled at the hubs to make an appointment for him ASAP. So Wednesday it was.

Maybe I shouldn't admit to this, but guess when the farrier was out last for the Dynamic Duo? Beginning of February. Yep, almost 16 weeks without a trim.

The farrier comes every 6 weeks and the BO texts everyone the date and asks who needs done. Since they schedule it, they are more than happy to catch and hold for it. You just have to let them know and bring a check at some point. And we kept skipping it. Gem just never needed done.

I admit, I have very little to do with Pete. Most people find this very odd, but he isn't my horse. Yes, he is the hubby's but beyond saying hi to him and bringing him in if the hubs asks, I treat him like any other horse that isn't mine on the property. I have only sat on him twice in 4 years and the last time was our first winter in WI...so roughly winter of 2010...4 years ago! He and the hubby have their own thing going on and I just stay away. But...a couple weeks ago I happened to be out loving on Gem and looked down at Pete's feet. And nearly crapped myself. They looked long, chipped, flared. Horrible. I got mad. I texted the hubby and told him he needed the farrier out ASAP. And so a week or two later, he finally did. And it fell on moving day.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be there and so the hubby was tasked with getting as much information as possible out of the farrier regarding the health of Gem's feet and her lack of being trimmed for the past 16 weeks.

Unfortunately, he missed Gem being trimmed, but showed up in time to chat, take her back out and catch Pete.

Farrier's words about Gem: she has awesomely amazing feet, he barely rasped her at all, and why on earth don't we just buy a stand and a rasp and do it ourselves?  He said that he only touched her because we asked him out and she was there. Otherwise he would have just let her go on without being touched at all. She is self trimming like a barefoot pro!!!

Now, Gemmie hasn't been ridden in almost 2 weeks. Not optimal with our summer rides about to commence, but life gets in the way and so she has had a mini vacation. When the hubby took her back out he said he had a racehorse on the end of the lead rope. She was prancing, snorting and carrying on. He let her loose and she took off snorting, farting and bucking as fast as she could. She ran through the herd of horses (Pete and two mares) trying to create a stir and they all just looked at her like she was stupid. So she snorted, farted and bucked again until she got them all up and they took off to the far side of the pasture. Gotta love that mare!!

The hubs caught Pete eventually and the farrier took a look. He is also barefoot and has been for a while. When he was being ridden every week, his feet were doing super well. Now that he gets ridden maybe once a month, they aren't self trimming so great. But even with that and 16 weeks since last being trimmed, the farrier only had to rasp. No actual trimming at all. He did mention the chips, but they were all superficial. And he does have some weird flares beginning, but they were not all that bad. His opinion: get a rasp and a stand and do it ourselves.

I love our barefoot horses!!!