Cost of shoeing a horse with ENORMOUS feet?

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SarahK

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Am madly considering taking on a Shire or Shire X at some point in a few months time. Chatted with my farrier and he has advised it would cost me 3 times the amount he charges me to shoe my current horse.

My horse is a cob type and does have fairly big feet - would it really be reasonable to charge 3 times the amount to shoe something like a shire or shire x?

I imagined it might be double, but three times the amount of shoeing a large cob....is that reasonable? also do Shires tend to have good enough feet to be barefoot? considering the potential cost of shoes!!!

Thanks
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We are planning to keep our shire cross welsh barefoot once broken, as long as they have good feet that don't flake at the sight of a pebble, i don't see the problem! Some company somewhere in austria work percherons i think,up the mountain roads on a daily basis bare foot with out problems!
 
Do you think because of the weight of a shire the feet might havea tendency to 'spread' and splay without shoes to hold them together as it were?
 
For Mags (our 3/4 shire) its £70 a set for normal shoes, about £90 for the heavier "shire" shoes, they don't have as much fullering and are a bit thicker so last with the stupid about of roadwork we do (about 90% at the moment)
 
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Do you think because of the weight of a shire the feet might havea tendency to 'spread' and splay without shoes to hold them together as it were?

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Shire's feet are ok... not great. Mags has to have toe clips on his hinds because he is a classic "3 toed shire" and has quater cracks on both sides of both back feet. Never gave him any issues what so ever tho.
 
My farrier charged an extra £5 to shoe a horse with enormous feet - mainly cos the shoes cost him a bit more, and it took him longer to do the shoeing as the horse was so heavy
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My shire x clydie was ok without shoes as long as she wasn't getting too much roadwork - any more than 20/30 minutes a day and she struggled, so we kept her shod most of the time
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I couldn't find any hoof boots large enough to cover her feet so using them probably wouldn't be an option for you.
 
I'm guessing it depends on the farrier then?

I pay about £70 per set for my large cob and my farrier advised a shire type would cost nearly 3 times that - thats extortionate really isn't it?!
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I would probably be doing about 30 mins roadwork each day so maybe just front shoes would work?
 
hi i use to own a shire till before christmas and it would of cost me over £100 to get him shod but because he had really good feet he didnt need them so i left him bare foot so i should think if hes got good feet he should be ok
 
We asked our farrier about this. he charges £15 to trim a pony, I think £30 to trim and front shoe him. He said he wouldn't charge any more for a shire. I have heard of farriers charging £80+ to do a heavy horse's feet because it really knackers their back - but obviously it depends on the farrier.
 
When Cairo wore shoes it was about £80 a set when it was £55 for a horse.

Trim - he cost £30 whilst my cob is £22.

For the last years of his life he was barefoot but he wasn't doing much work.

Farra, our new clyde will have fronts on and once we have sorted out a few problems with her foot balance, we hope to keep her barefoot as she won't do that much roadwork and seems to have good feet.
 
i have a massive shire horse type on loan - farrier only charged £35 to put 2 front shoes on. do you have any other farriers you could ask for a quote?
 
£35 for 2 shoes is about right..

I'm in North Devon and my farrier charges me £25 for fronts only..
My Shire cross had huge feet and I was charged the same for a trim as for my shetland pony, welsh a or cob. She also had no problems at all being barefoot..
 
My old farrier used to make Hens shoes up from scratch, and he never charged me a penny more than a "normal" horse.
My new farrier takes his foot down more (it's better for his ringbone not the farrier skimping!) and uses the biggest standard shoe he has, again he doens't charge a penny more! He has a bad back and for bigger horses, he has a special hind leg rest thingy!
 
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He has a bad back and for bigger horses, he has a special hind leg rest thingy!

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God our farrier would love that! Saying that his apprentice doesn't have good "farrier confermation" as he's quite tall so he always has a bad back, bless him.
 
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He has a bad back and for bigger horses, he has a special hind leg rest thingy!

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God our farrier would love that! Saying that his apprentice doesn't have good "farrier confermation" as he's quite tall so he always has a bad back, bless him.

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Do you use Clive and Darren?..
 
Crikey some of the prices people are paying is shocking! My farrier charges me £60 to shoe my big lad a Clydesdale cross who is one of if not the biggest horse he shoes. Even my last farrier was only £65. So people being charged £100 or more sounds like daylight robbery to me.
Caz
 
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