I want to kill my farrier

[Grey_Eventer]

I am fed up of him! he cannot be bothered to come and shoe are horses, he hasnt done them for about 8-9 weeks. my horse has a corn, but does that matter.. no, he couldnt possibly come and help us out. he couldnt possibly come and put a shoe back on one of the polo ponies who has lost it because he hasnt had his feet done in so long argh. hes such a pain. hell say oh ill come on tuesday and ring you up the day before and ssay oh sorry i have too many others ARGH...
GRRR
anyone know any GOOD farriers- dont care if there not nice, as long as they shoe very well... slgiht emergency now! in gloucestershire/oxfordshire area...
GRRRR i hate him!

 

[WishfulThinker]

I can sympathise. When I had my boy at home no farrier would come oout as it was just 1 horse. He went 7 months without a farrier!!! Thankfully he was unshod and I would hack him on the roads to keep his feet down and they grew slowly.

 

[Cliqmo]

Useless farriers are absolutely awful aren't they! You should be able to find another one www.farrier-reg.gov.uk

 

[Grey_Eventer]

its annoying as we have 5 horses! were on a yard and he does most of the yard in a day so its our 5, 2 others and aobut 10 of thr YOs so its not as if hes not going to earn a load of money... hes such an annoying b@stard! thankyou for that link.. will get looking!

 

[Fizzimyst]

Get a new farrier!

Are there any other stables near you? Could you speak to them and fit in with them so a farrier can do you all at the same time?

Hope you sort something out xx

 

[marmalade76]

Where abouts are you? I had to change farriers recently as my last one never turned up when he was supposed to. I would wait for hours only for him to phone and say he didn't have time to come and would come the following day, and then do the same again! I have to get someone to babysit so I can meet the farrier so it is really inconvenient for me.

 

[Grey_Eventer]

im about 15 mins from Burford. ive spoken to my "winter" yard and they gave me a number of there old farrier, but he is a pain aswell, but might be able to fit just my horse in.. but ARGH.. the thing is with those sites is you dont know what theyre like but if youve been refered by someone you can sort of expect what your paying for... grrr i hate farriers! they take on too many horses, dont care about their customers, think theyre the only ones that matter and bang the shoes on as quickly as possible and drive onto the next job! he made one of ours lame for cutting its hoof far too short!!

 

[MrsMozart]

[ QUOTE ]
im about 15 mins from Burford. ive spoken to my "winter" yard and they gave me a number of there old farrier, but he is a pain aswell, but might be able to fit just my horse in.. but ARGH.. the thing is with those sites is you dont know what theyre like but if youve been refered by someone you can sort of expect what your paying for... grrr i hate farriers! they take on too many horses, dont care about their customers, think theyre the only ones that matter and bang the shoes on as quickly as possible and drive onto the next job! he made one of ours lame for cutting its hoof far too short!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey, that last bit is too harsh Perdy!

.

You say they take on too many horses, yet another farrier is trying to fit you in...

My farrier, whilst usually late, which is often because the previous people didn't have the horses in/had horses feet covered in mud/the horse was young or an idiot and needed more time. He works damned hard. He takes care with all my horses, remembers who has what and why, is available when I want to ask him a numpty question/the back man or vet wants to talk to him, and doesn't charge the fortune I'd willingly pay for my the specialized care of my horses feet.

 

[chestnut cob]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
im about 15 mins from Burford. ive spoken to my "winter" yard and they gave me a number of there old farrier, but he is a pain aswell, but might be able to fit just my horse in.. but ARGH.. the thing is with those sites is you dont know what theyre like but if youve been refered by someone you can sort of expect what your paying for... grrr i hate farriers! they take on too many horses, dont care about their customers, think theyre the only ones that matter and bang the shoes on as quickly as possible and drive onto the next job! he made one of ours lame for cutting its hoof far too short!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey, that last bit is too harsh Perdy!

.

You say they take on too many horses, yet another farrier is trying to fit you in...

My farrier, whilst usually late, which is often because the previous people didn't have the horses in/had horses feet covered in mud/the horse was young or an idiot and needed more time. He works damned hard. He takes care with all my horses, remembers who has what and why, is available when I want to ask him a numpty question/the back man or vet wants to talk to him, and doesn't charge the fortune I'd willingly pay for my the specialized care of my horses feet.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is harsh however, having moved from that area about 6 months ago, I bet I can guess who the farrier is... if it is him, echo everything Perdy says. I found it incredibly difficult to get a good farrier when I was in Oxon; the only one who was reliable charged twice the price of everyone else, and the only reliable thing about him was that he turned up on time.

Most farriers are great and I never had a problem until I lived in the same area as Perdy. When I lived in Basingstoke, there were more good farriers than you would know what to do with. Current farrier, now I'm back in Shrops, is the best farrier I've used. Always on time, reasonably priced, does a great job, always has time for a chat, good with my difficult horse (has shivers so can take longer than others to shoe, and doesn't charge me extra for it). Just a shame a few give the rest a bad name.

 

[Natalie_H]

QR - They are not all like that! I had one who was more quantity rather than quality. My TB has terrible hooves, and he just wasn't interested if I had an issue in between scheduled shoeings. He ended up removing all his shoes, and my horse was crippled without them for three months. I ended up calling the vet to get a referral. The referral farrier (an absolute genius) put shoes on straight away. Horse was sound 2 hours later. He took us on, and I can't speak highly enough. Called me on a sunday to see how my horse was doing after treating him for an abscess on a Friday. Came out on a Sunday morning before he was due to judge at the Kent show to put on a loose shoe. He was out this morning at 11:30am to re-fit a shoe on my Mum's horse that came loose yesterday. We only have 2 horses at our own yard and he has the FWCF qualification. They are out there!!! Look after them when you find one!

 

[Grey_Eventer]

trust me, that is not harsh. when we first had him, i would stand there for hours and hours and hours. i would finally give up as he woule never turn up. didnt call us. nothing.
he is preety useless to be honest, and a lot of farriers are like this in our area. we used to have an amzing farrier but he didnt want to come over this far. he doesnt have enough time to do the amount of horses hes taken on board every 6-8 weeks. hes lazy. he jusst bangs the nails in, if i ask for stud holes, i dont get them. one of our horses, basically has cr@p feet but with good shoeing they can be ok, he doesnt take any notice to the horses needs, just bangs the nails in. he does it as quickly as possible. its not harsh. its the truth. and im fed up of it! there are a lot of farriers round me like this... which is a shame, but we have to live. everyone moves from farrier to farrier. its ridiculous!
i havent rung the other farrier yet as its a bank holiday, but he might be able to fit me in, but the likely hood is he wont! its just frustrating as my dad has had to shoe one of our horses- he doees know how to as we cant get a farrier and the shoe fell off and if left un shod will go lame for months. but we can not get our farrier out to us. he said he was comign tommorow, said this ages ago, put us in the diary, dad rang yesterday to check he was going to come, but oh woops he forgot us!!

 

[Rollin]

I must be lucky. I was always told that farriers were unreliable.

In Berkshire I had two good ones and in Scotland the same. Here in France I ditched the first one because of the quality of his work. The one I have now who is not as good technically as my Scottish farrier but he is reliable and he replaces thrown shoes free of charge if he fitted them.

One thing I have always done is book my farrier's next visit when he comes to my yard.i.e 6-7 weeks ahead.

 

[amycov]

I'm very very lucky as my farrier is brilliant.

 

[TheFarrier]

Have sent a PM.

 

[glitterfuzz]

[ QUOTE ]
... grrr i hate farriers! they take on too many horses, dont care about their customers, think theyre the only ones that matter and bang the shoes on as quickly as possible and drive onto the next job! he made one of ours lame for cutting its hoof far too short!!

[/ QUOTE ]

My farrier doesnt do this... neither do the other 4 that shoe at our yard! Is there a reason why he wont come to you? Badly behaved horse? shoeing in a field? non payment!?

 

[Shilasdair]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
... grrr i hate farriers! they take on too many horses, dont care about their customers, think theyre the only ones that matter and bang the shoes on as quickly as possible and drive onto the next job! he made one of ours lame for cutting its hoof far too short!!

[/ QUOTE ]

My farrier doesnt do this... neither do the other 4 that shoe at our yard! Is there a reason why he wont come to you? Badly behaved horse? shoeing in a field? non payment!?

[/ QUOTE ]

Is there a reason you are so rude to the OP, whom you know nothing about? Badly brought up? Inability to empathise? Lack of understanding!?

 

[Grey_Eventer]

LOL shilisdair.. TheFarrier has sent me a very nice PM- thank you

gf- he treats alot of people this way- he is just lazy. we have our horses in well within when hes coming. feet wiped mud free. well behaved horses, never much about. dad sends him a cheque that day IF he comes. hes just lazy tbh.
i didnt want to start an argument, as i know there are good farriers, it jsut seems that they are not around here!

 

[MrsMozart]

Perdy - no issue with you slating the farrier that you have the terrible experience of, but the last section read as 'all' farriers and that quite simply isn't the case.

 

[Grey_Eventer]

im sorry, i didnt mean it like that at all. we have had one very good farrier in the 15 years we have lived in gloucestershire area. we have been through a lot of farriers until we got the one good one, but we then moved and he would not travel to us as was too far.
it seems that everyone i speak to round here is going from farrier to farrier looking for a decent person who will be there on time and if their not ring us up to say! and also good quality work...
im sorry if it sounds as if i meant all farriers, but i didnt. we just seem to have had a cr@p experience of farriers!

 

[somethingorother]

Lol shils.

I think that a lot of farriers are unreliable. Most people who have horses will have had farrier troubles and know of the traumas of trying to find a good one and keep them. People who find a brilliant farrier first time round are very lucky, i only know one or two who i would be happy with round here. One comes from miles away only for several horses at a time, and the other can't take on everyone who wants him as he's too busy. You have to be quite pushy to get him out sometimes.

So i completely understand the op's problems. Hope you can find someone soon and that your horses feet don't suffer long term damage in the mean time.

 

[WishfulThinker]

it is really hit or miss! I had one years ago that was fairly good, and he was cheap (my sis foun dout how much markup he made and asked him to half it and he did - and was still making a profit).
But one time he just never showed up, despite it being arranged in advance. Couldn't get hold of him, tried for a week or so.

Then we heard through someone else that he had won a couple HUndred K on the lottery and he just buggered off - without telling any of his clients!!

Around us the majority are good. But they are VERY busy, and hard to get hold of.

When my lad is back from loan I hope to move him to a yard so that he can hopefully just be taken on by the farrier that visits and has a space. It took me months and months to get a farrier last time, so not risking it or the hassle I had before of ringing, vets, ILPH, Farriers reg council etc in an attempt to get a farrier.

 

[MrsMozart]

[ QUOTE ]
im sorry, i didnt mean it like that at all. we have had one very good farrier in the 15 years we have lived in gloucestershire area. we have been through a lot of farriers until we got the one good one, but we then moved and he would not travel to us as was too far.
it seems that everyone i speak to round here is going from farrier to farrier looking for a decent person who will be there on time and if their not ring us up to say! and also good quality work...
im sorry if it sounds as if i meant all farriers, but i didnt. we just seem to have had a cr@p experience of farriers!

[/ QUOTE ]

I hope you find a goody soon

. I guess I've been lucky, I know two good farriers and one blah one - he was on time, polite, etc., just not very good at farriering

. Current one has a bad taste in humour, is a sarky so-and-so, but he's good and usually turns up and roughly no more than half an hour late

.

 

[LizScott]

Not sure which side of Burford you are so they may not travel to you but my farrier is fab. I think it's unfair to tarnish all farriers with the same brush. When you find a good one they are worth their weight in gold and should be kept happy with prompt coffee making, a couple of biscuits and a bottle of something at xmas lol! Will pm you just incase

 

[Grey_Eventer]

i always make a coffee for my farrier, and a bottle at xmas! i am well trained

thank you for all your help!

 

[PeterNatt]

I would phone up the secretary of the Farriers Registration Committee in Peterborough and explain the problems you are having with farriers in your immediate area. He may be able to put you in touch with a farrier who is starting up or about to move in to your area

I always have two appointments (six weeks apart) with my farrier booked up in advance. I am first thing in the morning so he is never delayed. When I started using my farrier he was just starting off and he has proved to be reliable and good.

I am afraid that farriers are the same as many other self employed craftsmen. Some are reliable and others are not. If they are not reliable I don't use them.

 

[megwan1]

i have a really good farrier ALWAYS on time if not 10mins early does a lovely job on their feet and spends a good hour on it (i think this is good) always answers his phone and will be over asap to refit a lost or loose shoe.... really reliable and a good laugh!!! all i say is when u find a good one look after him!!!

 

[mattilda]

I would lend you mine but I KNOW you would not send him back. He is an excellent farrier, always turns up on time or rings if he is delayed. Has the patience of a saint with a nervous or difficult horse. If one loses a shoe he will call in within 48 hours to replace and often won't accept payment.
Let's hope you find yourself a good ún soon.

 

[Aleka81]

If you are still looking PM me. I know two good farriers in that area. One I am sure would come out to you.

 

[JanetGeorge]

[ QUOTE ]
Current farrier, now I'm back in Shrops, is the best farrier I've used. Always on time, reasonably priced, does a great job, always has time for a chat, good with my difficult horse (has shivers so can take longer than others to shoe, and doesn't charge me extra for it). Just a shame a few give the rest a bad name.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds like mine!

In fact he MAY be mine! (Is he plump and jolly and named Andrew J.??)

 

[Weezy]

I can back up EVERYTHING that perdy has said, we seem to have a very big problem in this area - they take on too many clients and then mess you about left, right and centre. We have been through 4 farriers in the last year trying to find one that a) turns up, b) doesn't hike the prices after the second shoeing (£75 for a straight set, I think not), c) shoes to a decent standard, d) doesn't take 90 mins per horse because they like to have a fag after each shoe is put on and/or lets their personal life/phone calls get in the way, I could go on, I really could, the stories I have are verging on the ridiculous!

Perdy did J give you the number for J AND the new one, or just for J?