A look at the education and farrier training trends from the recently completed 2010 Farrier Business Practices Survey demonstrates why today’s footcare professionals place such a high value on continuing learning opportunities.

Among full-time farriers who answered this American Farriers Journal survey, 54% completed high school, 16% graduated from a 2-year college, 17% were graduates of a 4-year college program and 3% held master’s degrees.

Part-timers invested even more time and money in education. Some 1% hold a doctorate degree, 8% have master’s degrees, 19% are 4-year college graduates and 25% earned 2-year college degrees.

Apprenticeships Valuable

Some 54% of all full-time and part-time farriers served an apprenticeship. The average length of time was 24 months for full-timers and 20 months for part-time farriers.

Serving an apprenticeship returned an additional $3,580 in annual income for full-time farriers compared to immediately starting in business without first working with a footcare pro. Over a 30-year career, that will amount to an additional $107,400 in income.

Some 68% of full-timers attended farrier school for an average of 13 weeks and 58% of part-time shoers spent 8 weeks at farrier school. Some 68% of full-timers graduated from farrier school compared to 58% of part-timers.

Among farrier school grads that also served an apprenticeship, the payoff was an additional $35,800 over a 20-year period.

Attending Events Pays Off

We also asked farriers how many footcare educational events they’d attended in the past year. Full-time farriers attended slightly more educational events than part-timers. They attended an…