Laboring on Labor Day

Monday was a day off from school, but not a day off. It was a farrier day and Carrie was thrilled to have me around to help. She hurt her hand recently (future post), so I spent 3.5 hours doing chores and holding horses while Meredith worked on their feet.

In case you didn't know, horse hooves are a little like giant fingernails. They can overgrow and need to be trimmed. If you trim them back too far it can cause a horse pain, so it's not to be done willy nilly.

Loki likes fresh hoof treats.

But we're talking about the barn right now. We pulled all the horses up for breakfast and then left most of them in while Meredith worked. As herd animals, horses do better when they're not alone. 

Eddy decided to take a nap while he was waiting around for his friends to get their pedicures.

Don't worry! He was fine. He rolled up to look at me when I was taking pictures before laying back down for a snooze.

Lane was the first one up. He's had consistent foot problems and needed all four feet shoed. 

He did a fantastic job. Much better than Lilly who was a slight brat (which means she kept wiggling, or wouldn't keep her foot up long enough for the farrier to finish in one go).

I took a picture of Lilly's foot to show my students. You can see the nail holes from her old shoe.

Meredith scrapes, cuts, sands and cleans away growth to promote a healthy foot and a clean connection with the new shoe.

Not all horses need shoes, but they all need someone to check on their feet and trim them if they're not wearing down naturally at the correct rate (and pastured/stalled horses usually don't).

Carrie took a few pictures of me at work.

She stayed the whole time as barn manager to keep tabs on what was going on. I walked back and forth to check on Shane some. He was more interested in finishing chores and earning electronics than he was with anything relating to the horses.

Which is a shame since he missed the smoke. Meredith hot shoes. That means she fires up the new shoe, so that it's red hot and uses the heat to melt/mold the hoof to be a flush fit with the shoe.

It doesn't hurt the horse, at all. Do you think we'd be able to hold back a 1,000+ lbs animal if we were hurting it?

It was a full morning, but still a nice break from school. I wouldn't want to do it daily, but I enjoy doing a variety of things and helping out.