Other ways of improving horses behaviour for the farrier?

Luci07

Luci07

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My horse is pretty well mannered - except with picking up his back legs (this was made clear when I bought him). There is physically nothing wrong with him (had a 5 star vetting and this was specifically looked at in July) and he has 3 monthly physio checks at the moment as well (changing shape).

I have reached the point where I can boot/bandage him up easily, I pick out his feet daily, I can hold his back legs up, I can bang his back feet with my hoofpick but when my farrier arrives, my horse just takes the proverbial. My farrier is getting really fed up and is seriously looking at dumping us as clients and I can't blame him. I am going to look at really extending the time I can hold my horses back legs up but any other ideas? Front legs are not really a problem - sometimes he thinks about being an idiot but gives up quickly. Without trying to sound pathetic, this is genuinely a nice horse so this behaviour is out of character. Tonight I just needed a back shoe put back on and my horse really tested my farrier.. so I need to make some sort of changes. Final point is that this is a horse who stresses easily and is a worrier - but he is absolutely not worried about my farrier or back legs, he just doesn't see why he needs to keep his legs up!
 
Do stretch exercise to get the horse used to extending his legs backwards and forwards more than you do when just picking feet out. And, for longer durations as he gets more used to it.
Also, bang round with a hammer, a hoof pick really isn't the same as a hammer. Some horse are hammer shy, and this can desensitise them.
 
As someone who bought a horse that was a complete canary mary about her hind legs, I sympathise.

You are obviously getting there, its one of those things that just takes time.

Hold his legs like the farrier does and for longer than you would usually, you will get there with patience :)
 
All of the above and for mine the biggest help has honestly been hobnob biscuits!! Because he loves them and only gets them for farrier he now associates with something nice and is good as gold
 
You can get licks that you hold for the horse whilst he is shod and they take his mind off what is happening to him. Depends if you can be 'asked' to hold a lick in front of him for an hour. Personally I have never used them, I find a wallop or yell from a farrier to be warning enough to behave :)
 
I might have to try the odd biscuit route as my boy will pick up all feet for me no problem in the field 99% of the time and doesn't even need a headcollar sometimes etc (yes winter they don't get picked up as often but still he knows how to do it) and the min the farrier comes round it's like he knows, last time he decided that his back feet were fine to be picked up and trimmed but take too long on the fronts and he'd go done on his knees in hopes the farrier would let go which he didn't and once he realised this stood like a pro for him to finish the hoof. All depends on the mood he's in he will sometimes play up for feet as he knows it gets him more attention so now if he doesn't do as I've asked I just do it again without a word to him and he gives up when he realises he isn't going to get what he wants 😊 To intelligent for his own good if you ask me 😂
 
Is it actually the farrier? Mine has taken a dislike to some: once a different farrier was seeing someone else on the yard and I asked him to pop a shoe back on rather than wait for my farrier. She didn't like him at all and wouldn't stand still so he thumped her = total dislike and I won't ask him ever again will stick to my usual. The other she dislikes is one of my farrier's apprentices, simply will not stand still for him, there is just something she doesn't like about him. (Neither of my other 2 dislike him) . My farrier and all his other chaps she is fine with.
 
I don't really believe that horses "put it on". At least in the horse's mind, there must still be something about holding up the hind leg for the farrier that is more worrisome/uncomfortable than when you do it. Maybe the farrier is a bit larger, or lifts the leg higher and that's enough to unbalance the horse and start him hopping/yanking. Maybe it's remembered worry/anticipation (even if it isn't obvious). Has the farrier tried to accommodate the horse in a more comfortable leg position? Does it make a difference? How is the horse with other people?
I'd try to narrow it down further with experimentation what it is that upsets the horse - leg position, balance, length of time the leg is up, a particular individual, hammering... If balance is part of the problem, then pushing the horse forward/backward until the three legs on the ground make a stable triangle can help set them up well. Using a rope looped around the fetlock can also be useful as a tool to practise moving the leg in a variety of places while maintaining balance.
For motivation, what worked with my old pony mare (bad balance plus mistrusting of people) was to have a helper hold a bucket with feed, and she'd be allowed to eat only so long as the leg was up in the air and not being yanked on. The moment she put it down and started fighting, the bucket went. She learned pretty quickly not to snatch the leg away. Before that, I'd tried to reward her myself if she'd given me the leg nicely, but that only taught her to give her leg, put it down as quickly as possible and wait for the treat!
 
Would your farrier be willing to spend an expanded time with your lad? You may well have to pay for his time. When the young Appy was a pain with her front feet , following the need for vetinary treatment under sedation, our farrier came and spent a morning with her, picking up her feet for incrementally longer time. It takes a lot of coffee breaks to allow the horse to think about it all before the next foot lifting efforts :D It workerd for our mare and the farrier and I have suggested that he offer the service as a training session for young or difficult horses, at an appropriate cost. The other thing that I did was pick up the mares feet at random times (it did occur to me that midnight when there was no-one else at home was possibly not the most sensible time, but I got away with that one :D )
 
I give one of mine half a tube of sedative gel one hour before shoeing he can be lively and my farrier had his shoulder dislocated before Christmas ( not my horse ) and I do want him wrenched about by my horse .
I think it's worth trying this with your horse to see if it helps if you can get a few calm shoeings under your belt the behaviour may improve .
Half a tube makes my horse ( 16.3 ) calm but not too dopey to balance and lift his legs easily .
We tried a smaller dose that's not enough and one hour is defiantly how long you need to give him between dosing and shoeing but it was a bit of trial and error to get to this .
 
I hate likits, they're disgusting things, but I have a horse that was a whole 17hh of WB nightmare when it came to the farrier, so I got one of those small round likits and put it in a door manger and over his door (facing out into the yard where he was, hope that makes sense), he was a different horse, he went so crazy licking that I think we could have amputated a leg and he woundn't have noticed.
 
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