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My first boss made every shoe by hand, now it's all pre-made. When do you still forge your own?
I worked for a farrier in the late 80s who only used hand-forged shoes. He had a coal forge in his shop and would shape each shoe on an anvil, which took hours but fit like a glove. Today, I rely on pre-made shoes for most clients because they save time and money. But when I deal with a horse with weird feet or a heavy draft, I remember how those custom shoes solved problems better. I have a small gas forge for these cases, but it's tough to fit into my schedule. How do other farriers decide when to forge versus use pre-mades? Are there tricks to keeping the old ways alive without falling behind on appointments?
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calebb576mo ago
Look, I get the romance of a hand-forged shoe, but calling it a rebellion feels off. Most pre-made shoes today are excellent and solve 99% of problems just fine. The real skill isn't in the forging, it's in the trimming and the nail placement. Spending hours on a custom shoe for every client would mean seeing half the horses, and their care would suffer. I save the forge for the true oddballs where nothing off the shelf works, and that's just smart business.
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sanchez.simon6mo ago
Still forge for weird feet? I do, it's worth it.
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valw696mo ago
Notice how we put up with generic, off the shelf stuff that never really fits right, from shoe inserts to those weird gaps in clothing. Forging your own path for a perfect fit, even for "weird" feet, feels like a small rebellion against a world built for average. It's choosing the slight hassle of a custom solution over the daily grind of something that almost works.
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