That's the word for the day, week, probably month. Today was farrier day for the horses. Luckily Anna had caught the ponies the night before and put them in the middle of the horse barn to save time. Luckily I say because Kerry was half an hour early and got there only half an hour after I got up! Anna and I had to scramble to get the horses up from the bottom pasture and everyone in the stalls. Then Emma helped me get the big fan down from the hay loft. We set this up in the aisleway to keep Kerry a little cooler, the horses a little cooler and hopefully, keep some of the flies off since a horse swishing it's tail and stomping it's feet is not conducive to a good trimming session.
Today Kerry put horse shoes on the two horses that we're taking trail riding this weekend - Piper and SueBee. Piper has never had shoes on before - we call it going 'barefoot' in the horse world. But Forrestville State Park has trails made of limestone that make horses' 'bare feet' super sore without protection. One or two hours riding and then the horse is ouchy. If you're there for 2 days, that leaves a lot of time doing nothing because your horse hurts.
They still put shoes on like they did long long ago. The farriers still use anvils and hammers and lots of tools. There is 'hot' shoeing and 'cold' shoeing. Kerry used cold shoeing for mine since it was just for trail riding and...I really don't know why...
Kerry has to walk between the barn and the back of his truck many times to get a shoeing done. At least we have a barn, and a fan to help with weather issues (both summer and winter weather). Lots of places Kerry said the horses are out in the pasture or in a pen and tied to a post. Not very safe for Kerry either. He also does horses where there's no one at home. THAT's too dangerous for him. I told him to stop going to those. Kerry gets injured quite a bit on the job. Last time (two months ago), his thumb was all wrapped up because he hit his thumb with the hammer when the horse jerked on him. He lost the thumb nail and had a lot of trouble holding his tools. I'm glad to see he has a helper this summer any way - maybe trying to learn the craft.
Here Anna is holding Piper while she gets shoes on. Anna had to leave for work just after Piper was finished.
SueBee actually stood better than she usually does (she usually tries to fall over). I think she enjoys the idea of shoes as a fashion statement. Here's a picture of both front feet, one done and one not done yet.
Hmmmm, looks like she toes out a little. Of course, she was trying to not fall over while Kerry had her hind foot up when I was taking this. Kerry asked that I take the last picture since it proves he can get all the little horse shoe nails straight across. I guess this NEVER happens.
Kerry also took care of my poor founder pony who's feet grow 10 times faster than a normal horses because of the founder. Usually we go 8-10 weeks between trimmings but for him I'm going to try 4 weeks. Kerry actually sawed off, with a saw, the toe of each foot to make it go quicker. Rudy wasn't real pleased with this but there's no feeling in it....
Here's a finale picture of Rudy's two front feet - one done and one not yet...
While we were busy in the barn with Kerry, I had the llamas in the adjoining pasture. Towards the end of the 3 hours, the llamas started really grumbling at each other. Honestly it sounded like a circus or zoo. I did want to move them back to the barn pasture since the shade had disappeared from where they had to wait. After I got all the horses put back where they belonged, I let the llamas back in. Will, my big male, almost ran into the barn and this is what he did -
If you can't see it, Will's front feet are standing in the water trough. He loves cooling off this way. Of course, it doesn't help the drinking water any....
Hot, hot, hot. No one moving much. Emma and Lee went to Beaver Lake to cool off but Anna is watching the 4th of July parade. In this heat, Really. Hot.
No comments:
Post a Comment