"ALL horse shoers place each new shoe against each of the horse's
hooves to ascertain whether that shoe correctly fits that hoof. This
is regardless of whether they cold shoe or heat the shoe in a forge.
Clearly if a shoe is hot from the forge, a shoer isn't going to plunge the
hot shoe into cold water, THEN see if the shoe fits as that would totally
negate the several advantages of heating the shoe in the first place. Thus,
of necessity, the hot shoe IS placed against the horse's hoof. Briefly
putting a hot shoe against a hoof is not "searing the shoe into the
foot". Further, most shoers do not check the shoe when it is RED
hot. They first allow the shoe to cool somewhat."
I mostly agree Diane but it does happen that a farrier will heat the shoe
to shape it and choose not to apply it hot to the foot - especially with young
horses or ones that are afraid of the smoke & smell when you ( indeed,
very briefly) apply the somewhat cooled shoe to the hoof.. and ofcourse this is
a definite no-no for horses with thin/sensitive feet/poor quality horn etc. - my
farrier will cool the shoe to check the fit & reheat if necessary
We saw a farrier on a major ride this summer (here in France) litterally
'sear' the shoe into the hoof on a horse which had lost a shoe & vetted thru
fine without it before being reshod. The foot was quite damaged & he had to
plane it quite a bit to get a new seat for the shoe - ofcourse the horse was
dead lame after this - ouch!
As for Kat's comments - I was a bit suprised to read these - sorry Kat but
you made me feel like a 10-year old being corrected by her teacher on language use... but
maybe that's because I'm a foreigner... ( and excuse my english if there are any
grammar, spelling or other mistakes!)
There is nothing like watching a hot shoe being worked on on a dark autumn
afternoon by the way - I'm always fascinated by the red hot iron when it comes
out of the forge - looks beautiful! And who doesn't go to have a look when you
hear the rythmic banging of hammer on shoe & anvil at the barn? My husband
is a farrier and even though I have seen this hundreds of times when he's
working at his forge at home I still go & watch - absolutely love it, it's
like being transported back in time.
The americans by the way make the best transportable forges - hubbie just
bought one imported from the US and it's absolutely brillant!
