Farrier Advice needed - Over- sized Shoes

[VickiN]

As you all know the search for a good farrier is sometimes very difficult.
I have recently tried a new farrier, in my desperate search for a reliable farrier. I just wanted to ask everyones opinion regarding oversided shoes.
I had Sinbad shod yesterday he has a slightly collapsed heel and my new farrier is aware of this, after he'd been done someone pointed out the fact that the shoes looked slight too big????
I asked my instructor for her opinion and she said they do that to support the heel.

So do I have a good farrier?????

[Kezzabelle]

Hi VickiN, why dont you call the farrier and ask him why the shoes seem to be bigger and if it has anything to do with your horses collapsed heel?

Luv Kez xx :)

P.S how is Sinbad working in his new shoes?

[Bebe]

My horse has collapsed heels and she's being shod so that the heels (or are they bars?) of the shoes - the points of the U shape, are slightly wider than her hoof. They don't extend past the heels of her hoof though.

If this is what you're farrier is doing, it could be to help with the collapsed heels. Sounds right anyway.

If they're slightly oversized all the way around the hoof, I'd give him a ring and ask why he's done it.

I've just been through the mill with farriers and hopefully have found a good one now. It's a nightmare though as you don't know how good they are until they've shod your horse and possibly caused a problem already. The one that I've just stopped using came highly recommended but managed to lame my horse through poor hoof balance.

[liz--y]

why not ring the farrier and ask him, my farrier is always happy to answer any questions i have

[Wally]

There are any amount of reasons where you'd get the shoe to stand proud of the hoof. If you are encouraging the foot to expand then the worst thing you can have happen is for thre hoof to overhang the shoe and cause corns and a bruised sole. So you make the shoe a teeny tiny bit larger at the place you want to encourage out. This must be bevelled off though or it causes a sharp edge.

What you seem to describe is the branches of the shoe at the heels are sticking out beyond the heels of the horse. This is needed to support the heels and stop any further collapse of the heels.

You get folk who will complain bitterly in the mistaken idea that the horse will over-reach his shoes off all the time, better to drag the odd shoe off than to regularly shoe short and make the heels weak in the first plce.

In an ordinary shoe on a horse with no problems the shoe should be a natural extension of the hoof wall to the floor and not stand proud of the hoof unless you are trying to influence the foot shape.

[virtuallyhorses]

Wally is quite correct (as usual) there are many reasons for a shoe to look a little large, in all sorts of places.

A very general guideline is that the heel of the shoe should line up with the cannon bone to provide best support. Now this is of course a very crude description of what your farrier is doing but it lets you imagine how the conformation of the horse could require that the heel of the shoe might need to considerably overhang the back of the heel in order to correctly support the foot and leg.

Given that you know there is a problem to be addressed ask your farrier what action he is taking rather than listen to someone else who may or may not know (anything) about farriery. Farriers do appreciate it when the owner becomes involved in their horse's shoeing. A partnership between owner and farrier will always give a better result for the horse.

BTW If anyone is interested in getting to know their farriers art a little better there is a very good book "Shoeing Right: Advice to Horse Owners from a Working Farrier" by David Krolick which explains quite simply and with good diagrams what the farrier does, how he deals with problems and what different types of shoes are used for - its avail from Amazon, and no doubt elsewhere :)

[Wally]

If your farrier is a good'un he will LOVE a sensible, intelligent discussion on shoeing and various techniques.

That's how I got Stella to teach me, I started to ask questions and she started to show me various ways of doing things and telling me why she was sucking her teeth and thinking hard.

Before she stared to teach me a foot was a foot, they were all horse-shoe shaped.....oh how blind I was!

A good book is "Hickman's Farriery", hellish expensive, but the one the farriers learn from. Another is "Shoeing for Performance in the sound and Lame Horse"