JJS
Well-Known Member
As some of you might remember, Flower's first farrier visit didn't exactly go to plan. She had always been perfectly happy with me handling her feet, but as soon as somebody else tried, she found it very scary.
Ever since then, we've been practising. Luckily for us, her hooves did a pretty good job of self-trimming and sorting themselves out, so rather than going in too quickly and frightening her, our farrier has been paying her a visit to keep an eye on them every time he's at the yard, and we've been trying our best to make her happier with the whole process.
Yesterday was D-Day. We still had a few hysterics to begin with, but by the end, she was contentedly standing munching on her haynet with a loose lead rope whilst she had her pedicure. Mary and Six were both big helps, as her mum had her wedged in on one side, and Uncle Six had his nose pressed to hers through the bars of their stables the whole time.
The result is four freshly trimmed feet and one positive experience to set her up moving forwards. For a six month old, I couldn't be more pleased with her. We now have a big, fat tick in the farrier box, she can be groomed, tied up, leads nicely, and is just a very lovely young lady to be around. We've even managed to completely resolve the few issues we were having by taking her off TopSpec balancer, so we now have our laid-back little foal back again.
So, I guess that's most of the hard work out of the way for a while. We'll obviously continue working on what she knows through winter, but she has all of the basics in place and is an absolute delight to be around
Gratuitous picture included just because she resembles a teddy bear in her winter woolies and I think she's adorable
Ever since then, we've been practising. Luckily for us, her hooves did a pretty good job of self-trimming and sorting themselves out, so rather than going in too quickly and frightening her, our farrier has been paying her a visit to keep an eye on them every time he's at the yard, and we've been trying our best to make her happier with the whole process.
Yesterday was D-Day. We still had a few hysterics to begin with, but by the end, she was contentedly standing munching on her haynet with a loose lead rope whilst she had her pedicure. Mary and Six were both big helps, as her mum had her wedged in on one side, and Uncle Six had his nose pressed to hers through the bars of their stables the whole time.
The result is four freshly trimmed feet and one positive experience to set her up moving forwards. For a six month old, I couldn't be more pleased with her. We now have a big, fat tick in the farrier box, she can be groomed, tied up, leads nicely, and is just a very lovely young lady to be around. We've even managed to completely resolve the few issues we were having by taking her off TopSpec balancer, so we now have our laid-back little foal back again.
So, I guess that's most of the hard work out of the way for a while. We'll obviously continue working on what she knows through winter, but she has all of the basics in place and is an absolute delight to be around
Gratuitous picture included just because she resembles a teddy bear in her winter woolies and I think she's adorable
