Bare foot trimmers

[FFAQ]

There is a level 5 Lantra accredited Equine Podiatry diploma in the UK now, so if qualifications are a concern you can always check which training your trimmer has done.
As others have said, trimmers are often more holistic in their approach to hoof health, but farriers can also be excellent. It really depends who's in your area! Good luck with the transition ?

 

[Floofball]

£55 for a trim.

My trimmer charges £35 and I’m very pleased with him so far ?? you did say you considered cost as irrelevant further up the thread though ?

 

[HelenBack]

Since the farriery training syllabus, last time I looked, still did not include trimming working barefoot horses, that's often a good thing.

If you want your farrier to know how to trim for work instead of turnout, you need a farrier who has done additional training or who was apprenticed to a master who has working barefoot horses on their list.
.

I understand from a local farrier that barefoot trimming is going to be introduced to the syllabus because they're fed up of the number of people going round calling themselves trimmers without any proper qualifications and making a mess of horses feet. Not that I'm dissing all trimmers as I know there are proper courses around but I know there are plenty of folk out there who have done a two day course and still call themselves a trimmer.

I'm quite lucky that in my area there are a lot of barefoot horses around, mostly because we have hacking that makes it easy to keep them unshod and also a lot of people are too tight to pay for shoes. This means that a lot of the farriers are used to trimming as part of their daily routine and it's not a big deal to them. Some do prefer to stick to shoeing but they're clear about that which is fine.

My farrier supports whatever is best for the individual horse and owner. Mine has had lameness issues and is better off without shoes which my farrier agrees with. He does well with minimal trimming so the farrier turns up and spends probably 10-15 minutes giving them a bit of a tidy up and that's it. No unnecessary fuss unless there's a particular issue that needs dealing with. He's polite and punctual and charges £25. I don't see the need for it to be a bigger deal than that really, although I will agree that when my horse first went barefoot I was a lot less relaxed about it all than I am now.