NEWS AND NOTES

November 12, 2012
 

The head of Queensland's only farrier training program says he cannot get enough employers to take on his students.

The farrier program is run through the University of Queensland's Vocational Education Centre at Gatton in the state's south.

Craig Jones says it has plenty of people wanting to become farriers but it is difficult finding them places to become an apprentice.

"There's many more leisure horses and the racing industry employs many farriers, mainly the leisure industry these days but the call for farriers is great, so it's a real problem getting the bosses to put the young people on," he said.

A new workshop is being installed to boost training opportunities for the apprentice farriers.

Mr Jones says there is already a workshop at the campus but the new one will be built next to the vet training clinic.

"We've now got a satellite workshop there as well, so if interesting cases come in, different 'lamenesses', different pathologies etc, we can take the apprentices to work on the horses as well in conjunction with veterinarians and vet students on the campus," he said.