In trying to find a farrier in your area, call around!!! Call training barns in your area and ask who they use and why. Call casual barns in your area and ask who they use and why. You likely have a Charleston Horse FB group and join it and ask around. Do you have a local dressage society? Ask them. Do you have a local eventing society? Ask them. Those horses have to be sound for sure. Similarly, do you have a Western Ranch riding or local Western Ranch horse trainer? Ask them. Those horses work cattle, do a bunch of different things and have to be sound. Omit the Western Show scene. Sure, you’ll get a million replies but the good farriers in your area will tend to rise to the top across disciplines. Listen CAREFUULY to what they say about farriers because they’ll never tell you who to avoid…but they’ll kind of tell you who to avoid!
Thanks for all this info, I checked out your other thread and it was also v informative!
Soo question for everyone on the farrier/vet interface situation… my vet suggested the need for some corrective shoeing due to her being slightly off on the inside fronts on a circle during her recent lameness exam and after looking at her x-rays, but didn’t really give any suggestions for specific corrections that needed to be done to her feet, like a lot of what I’m reading on here, and instead basically said that I just needed to try different things (i.e. try wedges and pads) to see what helps.
Who would you expect to be the authority on what specific interventions need to be made on the feet based on x-rays and lameness evals?
I’m a little bit frustrated that there appears to be so much wrong with her feet, but the vet didn’t point any of it out and just said to put her back in front pads. Clearly the front pads aren’t enough to fix what’s going on, would you expect your vet to spot an unbalanced trim job and ill-fitting shoe and raise the red flag about your farrier or nah?
When the vet and the farrier are working together on a horse, is the farrier basically just executing the vet’s directions? Or is it more like, the hoof needs to look like x y and z and you use your expertise to figure out how to turn it into that over time?
I fully understand. This comes from local vets and farriers to high-level vets and farriers. I used a vet whose horse in now an olympic contender and he disagreed with the way the farrier was shoeing my horse but said “if you tell the farrier I’ll deny it”. Such BS.
My current vet is a sport horse vet and a sport horse rider. That doesn’t stop her from working on QHs and she’s knowledgeable enough abou QH breeding to make foot recommendations.
Your radiographs are from one angle and admittedly, they look good. Would have loved to seen radiographs from the front but they aren’t often taken.
I’m not discounting that your farrier has a plan for those feet, I’m encouraging direct communication between you and the farrier to address all of the problems in the feet. He may have a longer term plan that any of us know.
Typically, the vet and farrier discuss the plan for the feet. Sometimes, vets are less able to discuss or farriers are less willing to discuss for a bunch of reasons. YOU, as an advocate for your horse can make it clear that you are seeking resolution (if they depart on approaches) for your horse and they’ll have to find resolution or tell you why one/each of them can’t. Remember, you are the paying customer, you are PAYING for their expertise. They have to come together and guide you. If one member often refuses, inquire and consider outsting one or the other.
Per 2 oz of the Mega Cell you’re getting 75mg of copper and 250mg zinc and only 1 mg biotin. You need to at least double up on that to get the levels of copper and zinc you need. For the same cost (or cheaper) you can switch to a supplement like California Trace and get more bang for your buck. They also make this supplement in pellet form if your pony doesn’t like a powder.
The communication between the vet and farrier is the most difficult part of the deal IMO. I have changed farriers and vets over the issues.
First I would look at the vet and other vet options. Do you have the chance to use a vet more experienced/interested in lameness? Most vets dont basically say “have the farrier try different stuff until something works”! Some of my issues started, however, when the vet wanted the toes shorter and the hoof at a different angle and the farrier said he couldnt do that. Hard to figure the true situation. Eventually I moved on from both of them! Found a vet that was not only well-regarded, but without a huge ego and who would talk through issues. Got the farrier by asking who he worked well with.
With current horse I had a good vet and we both knew the farrier for years. Still, it was worth the hassle and money to have them both there at the same time to xray, trim, xray, retrim, until we were all satisfied.
Vet and farrier combos can be delicate.
IME most vets aren’t going to disparage a farrier or his work. I believe it’s professional courtesy. At most I’ve had a vet quietly make positive remarks or gently postulate that a shorter shoeing / trim cycle might prevent / cure an issue. I’ve not been in a position yet where a vet has recommended a particular shoe set up.
My current farrier prefers one of my vets over the other. Both vets are in same practice. While I like both vets, I have a longer standing relationship (I’m not about to disregard 20 years of excellent service) with the one that farrier doesn’t prefer. Thankfully farrier isn’t too pushy (about vets) and also readily accepted my reasoning for most often using the vet I have a longer relationship with. This vet also is my preferred go to for my charity/budget cases. The slightly less preferred vet is my go to when I want to throw the kitchen sink at an issue.
Between the horse owner, the barn owner, the vet and the farrier the relationship can approach soap opera levels of complexity lol. Boyfriends are less trouble 
LITERALLY though, I am not new to horses but I am new to horse ownership, and navigating all the politics of all the different relationships has been literally the hardest part for me… sometimes I miss the days of just blindly doing whatever my trainer told me to do 
I hear you! Trying to keep everyone on the same page is like herding cats; nigh on impossible lol.
Do you have other pets? I ask bc if you maybe had a more solid relationship with a small animal vet they might be able to personally recommend a large animal vet. Or maybe a horse friend / previous trainer that could recommend a vet / farrier? I’m not saying that your current vet isn’t lovely, but rather IMO it’s crucial to have at least one actor in the soap opera that you trust implicitly. And I can see how it might be hard to have that level of trust with providers that are new to you; particularly if your pony has been having issues!
My vet is human and thus I expect him to make mistakes (in 20 yrs he’s made one), but I trust him completely to be straight with me, do his best and to have my animals’ best interests at heart.
Sooo I’m not against trying this at all, but when I enter in the details of her diet it does say that she’s actually good to go on copper and zinc, I think bc Omega Horseshine contains it and so does Purina Ultium Competition. Just a lil low on iodine apparently!
So if she’s not getting much of the Ultium where are all those calories coming from? The bulk of those calories would have to be coming from the forage. Hay and pasture is typically very low in copper and zinc. She’s not getting much in the way of copper and zinc from the OHS either… Say she’s getting 6oz of OHS a day (about a cup) she’s only getting about 18-19mg’s of copper and 48-49 mg’s of zinc. I’m sort of just thinking aloud here… I’ve used feedXL in the past and for a horse that’s not on much concentrate that is a lot of calories… just going off my experience using the program in the past… my results changed a ton after I had my hay tested.
Ehhhh. The amounts your feed xl report lists as your horse’s total Cu/Zn intake is the same as the supplemental Cu/Zn that I’m giving to my current hoof rehab project on top of his 10 lbs daily of Triple Crown Senior (which is formulated to be a complete horse ration if needed so has full serving of Cu/Zn in about five lbs), grass, alfalfa hay and Timothy hay.
A Cu/Zn supplement is cheap and might do your horse a world of good.
True, I just put that she’s on like mixed grass pasture but I have no idea what’s in my grass vs. what’s in the grass on FeedXL… I forget that that’s like a big grain of salt to take these analysis results with.
I will explore a new supplement! Definitely can’t hurt.
FeedXL is great if you have a hay/pasture analysis… it can get you going in the right direction, but unless you have a hay analysis then you’re kind of just shooting in the dark.
Personally I would discount anything the program says you are getting in the way of vitamins/minerals from forage and only go off what you know she is getting from feed/supplements etc unless you can get the hay/pasture tested.
what is the iron level? While there is no universally recommended “proper” ratio of iron:copper:zinc:manganese, there is a generically accept optimal ratio of around 4-10:1:3-5:3-5.
Meaning, if you have 168mg Cu, but iron is 2520 for a 15:1 ratio, I would be adding enough Cu to bring that down to at least 10:1. If you did that, then you’d re-evaluate the cu:zn ratio, and it it’s too out of whack, add Zn (or even add more copper, but that’s less likely)
OHS contains very little of any given nutrient, so while that’s contributing, it’s not a lot.
I am surprised this diet shows low iodine, when it should be in sufficient amounts in the Ultium
I have no personal knowledge but here is a farrier recommendation from a friend who lives in Charleston, FWIW:
“Honestly the best is probably Mick Doyle. He is actually based out of Tryon but comes to Charleston once a month. Hard to get on his schedule.”
Maybe he could help you get on the right track and/or recommend someone more local?
Thank you!!! I think I have definitely heard his name before. I will def look into him!
I don’t have the premium subscription so I dont have access to the iron level, for some reason that one costs extra 
and I actually just tried to look on the individual products’ labels but they didn’t say! However you all have me convinced to just try increasing copper and zinc anyway so as soon as I’m out of the Mega Cell I will do that.
I have been trimming my own horses for almost a year now because of poor trimming by ‘professionals’. I highly recommend the facebook group Hoof Talk For the Barefoot Horse. Although your horse is not completely barefoot, they can help you sort out the trim.
If you can get a rough guesstimate of iron levels the ideal iron/copper/zinc ratio is 4:1:3. If you can reduce iron levels at all by filtering water etc that would also be a good idea.
I have a horse with not quite rightness for years and the shoes made his hoof issues worse as his feet grow sideways and the pressure of the the shoe being nailed in and the inside of the foot growing sideways caused huge cracks. Shoes did not help the hooves grow into a better hoof. I am also puzzled why the farrier is putting huge bevels on the hooves with shoes? And imo overall the heels on the front look too high. But either way, if you utilize the winter for barefoot rehab ( which is what I did) the conditions have to be right. That might mean hoof boots for turnout for a few months, your horse needs to be walking about for most of the day ( no tiny dry lot pens for a few hours), the bedding need to be be dry, ( i added extra and mounded up in the pee area so it did not soak through over night) and other little details that make a difference. If you board and the pastures are muddy and full of manure at the gate and the horses stand there for hours, the hooves will never be in great shape unless you are willing to add hoof clay daily and do extreme hoof picking daily or pay someone to do it… Also at my barn the outdoor arena gets hard in the summer so I only walk on it and always have hoof boots on. One little stone bruise can make a horse " footy". My horse recently has been foot sore after the trims. My Vet advised to leave more sole even if its flaky.
