Any farriers on here?

Ok, getting a bit desperate for thoughts now....

WWYD?
Your horse has quarter clips on front shoes - he half pulled one off, resulting in you fully removing it to prevent further injury. You inspected the shoe to find that in fact it is a single front clip shoe which has had the central clip hammered flat to the inside of the shoe (where the shoe touches the sole/hoof wall), and it looks like the shoe has been heated at the sides and quarter clips rather crudely pinched in.

Horse now has a darkened patch of sole from contact with the flattened toe clip, but miraculously (he's a complete pansy) isn't lame.

Farrier coming in the morning, going to ask him to remove other front shoe (to see if its the same as this one), and ask him for his reasoning behind this, before deciding if I want to continue using him or not.

Am I totally over reacting? Is this common practise? I'm completely confused as I'd have thought it would create a pressure point, resulting in lameness (or corns/bruises), am I wrong? Thoughts/Opinions/Advice needed as to how to deal with this situation, have always been previously happy with his work and never been in this position before!
TY in advance!
 
my farrier in the past has made side clips on shoes but he would have never left the centre clip on! I would be totally livid! I wonder if it was a mistake or whether he does this often?
 
It's pretty hard to mistakenly hammer down a toe clip.

I would be livid. There is no benefit, no need and yes, real risk of sore spots or worse so demand an explanation, get your money back and find a new farrier if the explanation isn't satisfactory. I can't see how it would be.

We can walk around with a stone or something in our shoe. It might not make us limp, but it is still blinking annoying and we can remove it. Doing that on purpose...I just don't get it.
 
Just spoken to OH(a farrier)
Nothing to worry about.It takes a skilled farrier to fashion side clips on a shoe with nail holes. The folded toe clip will have done no harm.

So relax and be thankful you have a skilled farrier!
 
Thanks snowflake, thought i was going a bit doolally and totally over reacting! I feel bloody stupid for not paying more attention whilst he's working, and for singing his praises all over the county...

Changing farriers is going to be a bit of a nightmare, there's not many here and the ones there are are either no good, or too good and too busy to take on any more clients :( my old farrier was a star but i temporarily moved out of his catchment area and when i came back he'd gone to back to uni and had halved his client base, so doubt he'd take on another 7 horses.

Just feeling quite sad and disappointed about the whole thing TBH, he's such a lovely chap, I don't know whether it was intentional or a mistake.... this set has been refitted the last 2 times he's been done as horse has been off work, I had thought that the quarter clips were looking a bit battered but I just assumed that as they'd been refitted that many times they might look a bit worn. Amazed horse hasn't been lame or footsore, as he is a very 'footy' tb. Feeling pretty daft to say the least right now!
 
My farrier now always shoes the front feet with quater clips.

My horses feet have improved since he has. he says a lot of farriers now shoe with quater clips
 
abitodd said:
Just spoken to OH(a farrier)
Nothing to worry about.It takes a skilled farrier to fashion side clips on a shoe with nail holes. The folded toe clip will have done no harm.

So relax and be thankful you have a skilled farrier!
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Really? the way I see the folded toe clip thing, it would be like putting a penny inside one of my trainers and then going for a 5 mile run... i'd end up with a blister no doubt, can't see how it wouldn't cause a pressure point on the sole of the hoof? But then this is why I originally posted for an actual farrier to give advice, maybe I am over reacting? But so far the few friends i've mentioned it to have all been as horrified as each other! Really don't know where I stand on it?
 
I think many horses can benefit from quarter clips and good to have input from a farrier. Very interesting as I would really have been worried about soreness. Thanks for sharing. Never stop learning do we? :-)
 
Leviathan said:
My farrier now always shoes the front feet with quater clips.

My horses feet have improved since he has. he says a lot of farriers now shoe with quater clips
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Leviathan, the question isn't about the quarter clips - my previous farrier shod him with quarter clips with no problem. The issue I have is that he's made a single central-clipped shoe into a quarter clipped shoe, and i'm worried that where the central clip has been hammered down it has caused a pressure point on the sole of the hoof.
 
Not going to ask the expert again(it's new years day and he is not in work mode!) but he is another highly respected farrier and has(in the days when he was shoeing horses-BB-Before Barefoot)folded toe clips. I am guessing that when hot shoeing the clip burns un-necessary hoof wall and beds in comfortably.There are no nerves in this area and as far as load bearing goes, the attachment of anything on the hoof wall, extra bits or not, is not ideal but a good farrier will have prepared the foot to accomodate the shoe.
 
abitodd said:
Not going to ask the expert again(it's new years day and he is not in work mode!) but he is another highly respected farrier and has(in the days when he was shoeing horses-BB-Before Barefoot)folded toe clips. I am guessing that when hot shoeing the clip burns un-necessary hoof wall and beds in comfortably.There are no nerves in this area and as far as load bearing goes, the attachment of anything on the hoof wall, extra bits or not, is not ideal but a good farrier will have prepared the foot to accomodate the shoe.
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Thankyou for this, I don't want to go at him all guns blazing tomorrow morning (I really don't like confrontation, I'd rather know all the facts in advance so I can be prepared for a civilised well mannered discussion rather than an 'You've done this wrong I want my money back and i'm changing farrier' attack!) and its good to have the input from your OH farrier, so thankyou (and him!).

Will have a discussion with him tomorrow, see what he says and how he explains it. I'm just a bit worried, as my friend used to use him and she found his explanations of her horses hooves and how and why he shoes in a particular way was somewhat lacking, but that could possibly be because he's not the best with words. I think if I advise him that in future he uses proper quarter clipped shoes rather than altering single clipped ones i'll be a happy customer!
 
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Sensible solution. :)And be aware that using a shoe the correct weight,size etc may have been his main concern. Using something the wrong size,but with quarter clips(most common in hind shoes and therefore a different shape) would have made his job MUCH easier,but may have left the horse compromised.
 
Just thought I would post up on here again as my farrier was out this week and I asked him what his thoughts were.

He said, "it's just bl00dy lazy. I do see it and yes, it could cause sore spots but only if the farrier was really cr4p, but it is just plain laziness. It takes more to hammer one over and make it flat than it does to just hammer the toe clip off".

I wondered how hard it was to just remove the toe clip so he showed me. Took a cold slightly worn show out of his reject box, put it so that the clip was resting on the anvil and the shoe off the edge and whacked it 6 times with the hammer. Literally within about 20 seconds, the clip was off AND he had hammered the edge smooth. It was so quick and simple and took no effort whatsoever that I am now of the opinion, because I have seen that being done that yes, not removing the toe clip is just lazy.

He couldn't even think of a reason why anyone would do it as it a/ takes longer than just removing the toe clip and b/ there will always be the small chance that it is not done very well.

Just thought that I would mention it as I found it very interesting to be shown.

Then again, I am lucky, I have a farrier that takes almost 90 minutes over doing a horse all round, seeing them move to watch their action and spending time balancing the hooves and shaping the shoes to fit them, not the other way around. :-)
 
GG thats really interesting.... I spoke to my old farrier who said that it was quite common (round here) as it means farriers don't have to buy lots of different sized single and quarter clipped shoes (lazy? tight? possibly yes!).

We (my current farrier and I) had a discussion about what he'd done with this shoe. It was from about 2 months ago, when horse pulled that shoe, farrier did him whilst I was off the yard, didnt have any quarter clips in his size so made one from a single clip shoe. So that shoe has been on for more than 2 months (he's been refitting every time as horse is not doing much work and shoes nearly new), but he suprisingly hasn't been lame (so possibly truth in the 'there's no nerve endings in that part of the hoof' theory as another poster and my old farrier mentioned). I asked him to in future only use true quarter clipped shoes. On this occasion, he removed other front shoe to show me it was a true quarter clipped shoe. He then replaced with a set of brand new shoes and wasn't going to charge me (i paid him a token amount as he had the youngster to trim too and I had no change!). He was a bit offended that i thought he'd done a shoddy job, but on the whole I like my farrier and have never had a reason to complain about his work before. So now we know where we both stand on the quarter clip issue, hopefully we'll get along fine!
 
Skippys Mum said:
Really?? I thought a good farrier would prepare the shoe to accomodate the foot?

Makes me glad Arnie is now barefoot (but trimmed by my farriers who I am very happy with)
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I think she means preparing by paring out the hoof wall where the clip(s) will lie, not shaping the hoof to fit the shoe. X
 
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