Who or what decides if a person is a farrier

Well this bloke doesn't know what he is!!!!!

Found this at a livery yard notice board last night PMSL!!

If this is the way things are going around here then im moving to gloucestershire where the big money is!!!

Watching two French farriers working side by side, the elder, wiser of the two watched as his young understudy picked up his nails one by one, driving some into his horse's foot, throwing some of them out......... not able to remain silent, he asked, "Pierre, what the hell you doing wasting all those nails"?? The younger farrier replied, "you said the little mark on the head goes to the inside of the foot....half of these nails are no good, they are facing the wrong way!" To which the wise, old, certified farrier replied, " You idiot!..... those nails are for the other side of the foot!!"

Dave

I like the $18 hike above the "standard" trim for the "Barefoot" trim and assessment of course.

Nobody has ever answered my question...

What does it profit a person to stand for testing, aside from the personal satisfaction of knowing; and having proof on paper by some testing body, that you can provide a "minimum standard of care"?

Not sure if this helps answers your question but there is a vet practice by me that only allows farrier certified at AWCF or above to perform corrective shoeing on horses they diagnose so some farriers will have lost work to horses visit the surgery for lameness diagnostics.

Well Shane, If ya' gotta ask......... And, in my experience, that 'minimum standard of care' is well above what many folks who call themselves "farrier", provide. In fact, true or not, I have on occasion, heard such individuals referred to as "ham-fisted hoof butchers"...............

So Ray and Rick you don't have any passion about working as a farrier ? You both are strictly for the money and the mechanical workings ?
You do this as a vocation with no feeling about it one way or the other but to collect the pay check at the end of the job ? (right... Your both romantic businessmen with great skills )
Perhaps its the romantic in me that talks about the passion for the job and working with the animals.

I acknowledge your both better businessmen than I and probably see the chaffe from the wheat better than I. (don't know what that actually means but read it in a poem one time)

Perhaps after working at the trade as long as you both have you have gotten hardening of the arteries and the passion is lost some where between the kidneys and the heart. (thats a joke son)

I see enough of the blokes trimming and nailing and setting shoe's who don't know how or just don't care enough to learn to do it in a proper manner. (note I didn't say do it right, cause I know Rick will come back with "it depends")

I will still contend that it is the passion of the business in many forms that has held my interest and love of this trade. And it is the skills of men like you that have taught me so much over the many years.

My 2 cents worth

Jaye taught me this.....

#55 for a full set.... is that including VAT?

Seems bloody cheap to me Marc... 'specially compared to #38.50 for a BS...... errr, I mean BF trim.

Is that the going rate around there?

Oh good god the pillow fluff of Shoeing for passion and not into it for money..lol..its laughable..the sheer thought of someone cant have passion and do it for the money..besides is someone getting rich Shoeing horses I not know about..there's so much easier stuff out there to do and make same money so on that alone says any and all farriers enjoy it..saying one has more passion than the next guy is like saying he now does a bad job and one is a better farrier than the next guy that lost passion..if its not about the money and all about helping then get a regular job and shoe on weekend and afternoons and not charge a dime because then and only then can one say he not in it for the money...I have to ask how many of you shoe for rescues for free for the love and help of horses..rescues beg for donation of time

I personally charge more than that although that is the average rate of a UK farrier these days, that would not include VAT as an annual turnover of £70k+ is required before you add 20% to your prices

That's a sensible threshhold, rather than the $70K in pacific pesos here.... But that's only 26 head a week, add in a few pour ins, bar shoes etc...surely many guys would be over that?

Unless your biggest account is Mr C. Ash I suppose.

I do , Travis...... I give a local rescue 8 Saturday mornings a year, donate on average $5K worth of services annually to a theraputic riding center that is the real deal, and just committed to donate the foot care to a TWH mare that a group of my clients rescued only to find out that she is in foal and due in about 60 days......
Farriery is a passion for me.... I do it because I want to,not because I have to..... I think that Bruce has it right if I understand him correctly.... without a passion for farriery, this would become a terrible "job"...at least for me...

95% of my book I charge a healthy fee to do...... am I getting rich shoeing horses??? You bet your ass I am... I get to play with horses all day long and call it work and it throws enough money so I don't care how much a loaf of bread costs, I can buy more hoof knives from Frank Ringle that I'll never use just 'cause I like 'em, and there is always gas money for the Harleys......

Dave

I can't exactly remember how Craig Trnka says it. . ."make you're vocation your vacation, and your vacation your vocation". . .basically if you love your job you'll never work another day of your life.

On certification. . .you have to view it completely as a prescription that you are being asked to fill and then getting judged as to how well you fill that script in the given time. Try are not and end all to education, just an open door to learning and improving a skill set that can be used throughout your career. Todd Walker told me "passing the CJF is not congratulations, it's welcome to graduate school". . .I'm finally realizing that.

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