Shoeing a shetland?

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bellaboo

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I know my shetland has had shoes on before i brought him, but what are peoples views on shoeing a shettie? does anybody have a shetland with shoes?
Reason i ask is because Ted (my shetland) used to be a driving pony and our new yard owner has two driving friesians and is keen to get ted going again. Now i don't mind at all, to be honest he could do with the exercise to keep his weight down and also he loves working. Have asked my farrier before and he said it is difficult to shoe shetlands as there feet are so small, shoes have to be specially made and they are so close to the ground
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Have told her to keep the fields and school but unfortunately we have road work to get anywhere.
Would love to her views and experiences
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he should be fine with road work with out shoes, all you can do is try him and see how he goes. my friend takes her shetland out 3 times a week riding without shoes and he is fine
 
We had shoes on our shetland. the farrier used to always complain about being so low to the ground as well however she only needed done about 3/ 4 times a year as her feet grew so slowly and they were very strong. I am sure my farrier at the time was able to buy shoes for Rosie.
 
My shetland used to be shod as she was driven, and I never once had a problem about getting shoes. She started out with special lightweight "racing" shoes then had normal ones, albeit very small ones! My farrier never mentioned them as being hard to get, I imagine as long as you tell him it's a shetland then he can just order them in if he doesn't have any little ones on his books. She is a fairly big Shetland though, not sure how the miniatures fare.
I suspect he just doesn't like shoeing them because they're tough on the back!
 
Our 9hh shetland has fronts on, as he is a bit footsore without them. Farrier said they are the smallest shoes he has and popped them in with 4 little nails a piece. No problems
 
My shetland used to be shod - again - farrier never mentioned any problems getting his size. The only thing they used to complain about was the fact he was small and it hurt their backs - he was normally good however once did errr - rear up onto the farriers back :O
 
Why don't you allow him to be driven and see how he goes? Shetlands often have very tough feet. A neighbour has two shetlands that they drive on the roads a lot and their feet are fine. If he should need shoes, there really shouldn't be a problem getting shoes, just getting down to nail them on!!
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We drive our shetty on the roads unshod, the shoes, when we tried him with them wore down quicker than his feet left natural did!
 
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