Farrier's / trainee farrier

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seana12

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I would like to train to be a farrier, can anyone give me any advise or tips?

I understand you have to train for 4 years and 2 months.

Would you recommend it as a career?

(I am a girl!! )

Thanks!

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One of my best friends (girl!) trained to be a farrier and has been qualified now for a few years. The training is tough as you get paid very very little, so you have to be able to cope with that for 4 years. And it's really hard physical work, so you need to be able to withstand that as well. I would never be able to do it! She tried to teach me to do a tiny rasp on my pony's foot, i managed to cut my thumb on the first go! You do also get injuries from time to time, burns and also coping with really naughty horses. So those I think are the tough bits to be aware of.

But, once qualified, it seems pretty good. She does work extremely hard, but you can choose your workload. I think as a girl you probabbly can't take on as much as a man due to physical differences, but you can still earn a realy good living. You also get flexibility in your working hours and get to be your own boss.

Why don't you ask a local farrier if you could spend a day or a week with them as work experience? You probably wouldn't be allowed to do much, but it would give you an idea if you want to do it.
 
I went to Warwickshire college/Moreton Morrell. There were 2 girls doing the farriery course when I was there who both did extremely well.
If you're interested, do you have a farrier (either for your own horse or at a RS) that you could ask to do a few weeks work experience with to get an idea of the sort of lifestyle/work involved? (Or if you work, perhaps to help/get experience at weekends/evenings?)

It is extremely hard work (on our course we had to go and do a little bit of farriery including taking a shoe off which is harder than it looks
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) but you can do the hours to fit around your lifestyle to some extent.
 
I would definitely recommend a visit to this website:

http://www.wcf.org.uk/

I considered doing it a while ago myself but lets just say an ex-boyfriend persuaded me not to
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It was a while ago now but I'm sure I contacted them and they sent me a whole load of information, they were really good and friendly.
 
Apart from checking out the webiste on the link given, you would be best off talking to Thefarrier on here. I have had a female farrier and she is excellent,including with the heavies. I see no reason a female can't be a good farrier.
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i hada new farrier out last week, 3 of them came and one was a young girl apprentice, and the farrier i had for my old mare had a female apprentice too
 
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