When you finish with school, you may want to dabble with a variety of horses and disciplines, working under experts in the fields and also learning from your own mistakes. However, you may eventually find a specific discipline or breed that you want to focus your practice on.

 Experts from different fields have volunteered some thoughts from their own personal experience to help you learn about the business climate and expectations each discipline brings to the table. While each farrier may have their own ideas about what works, they all carry a wealth of knowledge and great ideas to take away. 

Pleasure/Backyard By Bill Mayfield (Eagle, Wis.)

Get The Horse’s Background

Quiz owners as to how they’re going to use their horse. It helps you figure out how to best shoe the horse and what type of shoe to select. Also, get a brief history of the horse. How long have they owned it? Has the horse had any problems or lameness issues? That also helps you figure out whether a horse could potentially have problems such as forging, stumbling, etc. Find out as much as you can.

Know The Owner’s Limits

Backyard horse owners are usually more financially challenged. You have to be careful. Do the best thing for the horse, but also be sensitive to the client’s financial limitations. Make the horse comfortable using more limited resources first. Then if that doesn’t work, you can use more elaborate methods.

Expect Novice Horse Owners

You might get more first-time…