With today’s creative, organized and larger designs of shoeing trucks and trailers, farriers can carry the necessary equipment to tackle almost any shoeing demand that a hoof can present.

While farriers are dealing with the current economic storm, it’s clear that they are as concerned with the health of the horses they work with as with their own income.

If you have been around horses for long, you have probably had to deal with an abscess. For farriers, treating abscesses is part and parcel of what we do for a living. An abscess is simply an infection in the sensitive structures of the foot. Often it is from a puncture in the sole that allows bacteria into the solar corium. However, they can occur from a bruise that becomes infected or from the introduction of bacteria from other situations, such as severe wet or environmental changes.

Using cameras to catalog your work isn't a new idea to farriery. Until recently, many shoers would use a 35 mm film camera to document horses' feet. In those days, one would shoot pictures, turn in the film at a developer and, a few days later when the pictures were ready, collect the photos and hope they turned out OK.