Would like input on being a “female” farrier. Since it is a male dominated industry, I am sure there are kickbacks, both positive, and negative - about being the less popular gender. I’m exploring farrier as a potential job; and would like opinions.
I am a hearty outdoor female who wants a job that is intellectually challenging, physically demanding, and within the equine industry. I am a mighty 5’4. I hope to be self employed and I am exploring all realms of this possibility. While I do want to work within the equine industry, I need a job that can withstand the economic fluctuations and pay the bills that a single handed competitive dressage rider will have. Hope to one day be able to live off of the income that an equine business will bring in, but aware that this takes a while to accomplish and I need to have a back up in case it doesn’t work. I’m aware it is a physically demanding job. My hope would be that one day I would only have to do it part time, and the income from the business will be enough.
I am a female farrier and I apprenticed with a female farrier. Not an issue in general, dealing with rude drafts can be harder, and you’ll likely want to hot shoe the really big guys, dealing with minis is easier.
I like the idea of a farrier that rides because they can look at the way the horse moves and shoe accordingly. Also they understand the discipline the horse is being ridden for. Gender doesn’t matter to me. Doing an excellent job does! Good luck to you!
Gender doesn’t concern me-- it’s all about the quality of work. With that said, if I had a choice between a male and female farrier of equal ability, I’d choose the female farrier every time.
I do think women farriers tend to get injured a bit more than men, though. This is just my observation from having a lot of farrier friends.
Best of luck with your decision!
I have a friend who is a female farrier and she’s an FEI dressage rider as well. She has weekly chiropractic and massage appointments to help keep her body in shape.
I very briefly thought about farriery as work, but after seeing what a hard time my farriers have had physically (and not just my girlfriend, but big men as well), and then after spending some time under horses trimming my own, I decided I wasn’t interested in it after all. If you are the sole breadwinner and you get injured, there’s no backup to help you stay afloat financially, not to mention keeping your book going.
My farrier is a gal and I LOFF her 
My mare’s feet look the best they have in the 6 years I have had her.
I’ve had both, gender didn’t matter, but for what it is worth, I never found a male farrier who was patient enough for my mare. She isn’t bad, but she got roughed up by a farrier as a foal and has never been totally chill with getting her feet done. She’s much better now and made very fast progress with my current farrier.
My farrier is female and she does an amazing job! Her current apprentice is female too. My farrier is married, has two kids and really understands horses…she’s tall but stick thin and has no issues doing the work. She has a super busy business but does have a former apprentice who can cover for her when she takes a vacation (& help her out as needed). Horses really seem to like her. 
The farrier college here has probably half or more female students - all get jobs, and are more than excellent. No problem.
My former assistant just finished farrier school down in the US. Her biggest issue was with all the forge work they did the first few weeks: she was really glad she had apprenticed here first and had a bit of a start on the forge work before she went to school!
I think it is a good idea to do the same to get an idea on how hard the work is physically.
I don’t think gender will be an issue if you can actually do the work: most horse owners are female and will may feel more comfortable hiring a women to come to their property.
My farrier is female. I have had male farriers who were good, however my female farrier’s ego never gets in the way and she is always happy to answer my questions without feeling, or at least not acting like she feels, threatened that I might have a question or two.
I’ve only had one female farrier, so my opinion may be tainted, but her ego DID get in the way. I know the old mare’s got funky feet- just trim them the way I tell you, thankyouverymuch. But noooooooooooo, her schooling or whatever made her decide to do whatever she damn well pleased because it was “correct”. She didn’t stay in this area very long. FWIW, I’ve had a few egotistical male farriers as well- but except for a couple, they were at least good at what they did.
ETA: No, the mare wasn’t comfortable with her “correct” trim.
The best farrier I’ve had for the mare was a woman. She was a Morgan person and hence very experienced in “show packages” – but also very much in demand amongst sport horse people.
I moved barns in 2009 and left her service area, but when I was in the midst of farrier drama back in 2012, I seriously considered hauling the mare to her, an hour or more each way.
I find most male farriers gossip more than the female ones 
My farrier is awesome and she also happens to be female.
She shod my horses when I was a junior rider and then when I was an adult and not happy with my precious farrier service we reconnected. I doubt I will ever use anyone else (although that is one of the great things about her, she doesn’t have an ego, if I ever brought her a horse with feet she didn’t think she couldn’t successfully manage she would refer me to someone else. She is the best).
My current farrier is female. Gender was not a consideration when I hired her.
I want somebody who is good at their job, punctual and good at communicating. If you are running late I want to know, my time is valuable too.
I also wanted someone who was assertive enough to refuse to do the extra couple of horses that suddenly needed doing at the place before me… I spend far too many days waiting for the dentist or saddle fitter because my neighbours can’t organize their way out of a paper bag and often suddenly produce up to six horses.
Have you considered saddle fitting or dentistry?
My farrier is a woman. I hired her because she was the farrier used by another boarder at the barn when I first bought my horses. She is very good; patient, firm, professional, punctual, and knowledgeable. She’s also nice.
It is such a hard job whether you are a man or a woman. More power to you!
My farrier is a woman. She is also a good friend of mine.
now in her mid-forties she’s having a lot of back and elbow issues. She works out constantly, but can’t keep the over-use injuries at bay. she’s actually looking a getting into another line of work, which will be a huge shame because he is so good at what she does.
She also has an issue with non-payers. Now this may be partly because she is too kind, but its getting very old for her to be constantly chasing people for payment.
You want to be sure that a) you keep yourself sound
andb) be a pit-bull about getting paid!
[QUOTE=Sportypony;7656948]
Would like input on being a “female” farrier. Since it is a male dominated industry, I am sure there are kickbacks, both positive, and negative - about being the less popular gender. I’m exploring farrier as a potential job; and would like opinions.
I am a hearty outdoor female who wants a job that is intellectually challenging, physically demanding, and within the equine industry. I am a mighty 5’4. I hope to be self employed and I am exploring all realms of this possibility. While I do want to work within the equine industry, I need a job that can withstand the economic fluctuations and pay the bills that a single handed competitive dressage rider will have. Hope to one day be able to live off of the income that an equine business will bring in, but aware that this takes a while to accomplish and I need to have a back up in case it doesn’t work. I’m aware it is a physically demanding job. My hope would be that one day I would only have to do it part time, and the income from the business will be enough.[/QUOTE]
Over the years I’ve known two. Both do (or did) excellent quality work, deeply committed to their career choice and great with horses.
The older lady failed to heed the signals her back was sending her as she got older, and in common with many male farriers wound up addicted to prescription painkillers and assorted other substances and dropping out of the profession. Had she taken a “helper” at a timely moment, as I strongly urged, she could have spared herself some of the grunt-work and trained an apprentice at the same time; there were no lack of candidates. Unfortunately, substances won out and we lost an excellent shoer and horsewoman.
The other is my current barefoot trimmer, who does a superb job. She is a health “nut” who is very, very pro-active and realistic about what this profession does to your body. Also a rider, she does yoga, Pilates, and follows a challenging dietary regimen to optimize her ability to continue trimming up to a dozen horses a day in her mid-40’s.
One thing any number of farriers have told me over the years: If you do it every day, your body gets used to it. If you do it only intermittently, in spurts or snatches, your back is going to start hating you very quickly. This was my experience exactly when I used to trim my own horses and my boarders.
From what I’ve seen, male or female, if you start as an apprentice in your late teens or early 20’s, you’ve got until age 50 or so before your body says “'Nuff!” and you need to have younger helpers working with you to do a lot of the trimming and clinching while you make and nail on shoes. But you should want to do your part to pass on the torch that way anyhow. “Blacksmithing” is a fairly mystical art. :winkgrin:
BTW–if you have smart business skills you can make a LOT of money. At the very least take courses in accounting, billing, and financial management. I’ve seen lots of GREAT farriers who couldn’t collect their money because they didn’t know how to be businesslike; don’t make that mistake!
Good Luck! :yes:
My farrier is female. Probably 95 lbs soaking wet and when I first started using her she drove up in a VW beetle! Big difference from the male farrier with his big butt truck, trailer and helper. What I like about the female horse owning farrier is her ability to look at the whole horse vs just their feet and she is not afraid to speak her mind.
I want to make a comment about male farrier’s reactions to women working on hooves.
I have never been a farrier, but I have been trimming horses hooves for over 40 years, off and on. One day I had just moved to my land, a neighbor let me put my stud colt in a stall in his barn, I saw they had a rasp, and asked if I could borrow it because I was behind on rasping his hooves. Immediately I was offered any tool, was lent a shoeing apron, and two men who had worked at farriers professionally were going “LOOK, she’s getting UNDER the horse!”. This area tends to have macho horsemen, but they had no problem with a woman who was willing to get her hands dirty, get down to the nitty gritty of handling horses and who proved she could do it.
I have gotten many helpful hints from the times I had access to farriers and they never accused me of ruining my horse’s hooves. I think they find it relaxing to look at someone else doing the work.
