A Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!

Well, here are some ideas about cards you could send-- next Christmas :-)

Is Your Horse Balanced?

Blue Mountain Centre's website offers you a guide to answer this question yourself.

equine hoof care & rehabilitation centre

 

The Centre had it's official launch day on the 13th of November. The official flyer about the launch and also the Centre can be found at Google Docs (you might have to sign in).

Farriers Online is planning regular updates about the activities of this new facility. Your comments are most welcome if you were one of the lucky ones who attended the launch event.

Putting the Horses Back Into Horsesho...

Valid point fom Dave Millwater, thanks to Facebook

Millwater Publishing: Cover Story: Putting the Horses Back Into Horsesho...: " A considerable segment of the horse owning public, especially the barefoot horse enthusiasts, seem to think farriers are preoccupied..."

Dave Millwater's writings are usually a good read, this one  is no exception

Our very own Rodney King in Rood and Riddle video on youtube

We continue to be proud of you Rodney.

Hoof abscesses - a New Zealand winter/spring evergreen

For some reason hoof abscesses are one of the major causes of lameness in the New Zealand horse population. The variety of concepts in the public about this issue, some of them being quite misguided, is astonishing. People seem to forget, that if there is pus in a foot, it has to be dealt with effectively before the horse can expect healing.
One excellent reading on the subject is David Hankin's abscess article from Horse & Pony.

An evergreen question answered by David Hankin DipWCF

It is often a hard call to decide to call the vet straight away if the horse goes lame and it happens to be after shoeing or trimming, which will result in a hefty bill, or try the farrier as first point of call.
Read about it in this article (originally appeared in Horse & Pony in 2007, but still completely up to date)

Great Advice From David Hankin

Reading up on farriery can be a very time consuming project. Therefore I am always out for little gems of advice to share.
Well, this one from David Hankin is easy on the eye but has some valuable thoughts on how to manage horse-feet in lean times...

One must have tool...

This toy is definitely on the top of my wishlist!
One handed Cottam nippers

The moment of truth...

This is our first effort at creating a survey, please support our effort in creating relevant information for both farriers and clients.

Click here to take our survey Thank you!

The Big Farrier Survey

I have started collecting material to run a big, FAIR survey on the performance of farriers around the world.
It is intended to provide help for farriers to improve their business and horse owners to find the most suitable farrier for their horses.

Please send me ideas about what YOU would like to see in a survey to farriersonline@gmail.com.

A sneak peak into old forges

The "standard screw-in studded front shoe" was the prescribed front shoe in the Royal Hungarian Army. It's design was based on the Austro-Hungarian (K und K) design. The shoes were forged using the help of a striker in a bottom swedge, one branch at a time.

I am waiting for some replies from friends to provide you with exact bibliographic information on the textbook (Dr Mihaly Horvath: Horseshoeing science.) and also looking at finding more data on the development of the standardized shoeing prescriptions in the armies of the past. If you have any relevant data to this subject please email me so we can share it with everybody.




 
It is always interesting to see what our fore-bearers did. I will be following the tracks of the farriers of the last 300 hundred years in the next 12 months. I hope it will be interesting for many farriers and horse owners.

Any content suggestions are welcome at farriersonline@gmail.com.

Welcome to Farriers Online

Farriers Online is dedicated to do research for farriers worldwide. In the next few months we will provide you with invaluable information about farriery, supplies, equine podiatry and many other related topics.