Does your rig work for you or against you? Unless you’re one of the few farriers who have the horses brought to them, your shoeing rig goes a long way toward determining how easily and comfortably you work and travel every day.

How quickly can you move from one job site to another? Will you have to work under the hot sun or in the cold wind? How fast can you be ready to work after pulling up to the barn? How often do you have to lift your anvil in and out? When the work week is done, can you use your rig to go fishing?

The answers depend on your rig.

Every style of rig — from a pickup with a few shoes in the bed to the most deluxe, custom-built body, from the walk-ins to the fold-outs — offers advantages and disadvantages. What’s best depends on who’s driving and shoeing.

To help you decide what you want your next rig to be, we’ve compiled some of the insights and tips shared with American Farriers Journal by shoers.

Slide-Out Beds

Some farriers believe that rail-mounted, extended beds that slide out from the back of their pickups are exactly what they need.

• Rob McCumber of Boynton Beach, Fla., got around restrictions on commercial vehicles being parked or stored in his neighborhood by moving…