I am now in the market for a shoeing stock for oversize drafts. Anyone familiar wth these? Good bad or indifferent? Foudn one with Work tack or something, just wondering if anyone has had any experience with these?
https://www.workinghorsetack.com/draft-haflinger-horseshoeing-stocks-p/1017-1000.htm
Has your Farrier agreed to use the stocks? We see horses trimmed or shod in stocks learning to hang in them, all weight supported by the stocks. A horse well trained to lift and hold up his feet is “untrained” very quickly after being shod in stocks. Horse gets no relief from tied up leg while being worked on, MUST keep that leg up regardless of horse tiredness. So horse learns to hang weight on the stocks. It often takes a very long time to get the drafts shod, so that is a lot of “hang time” as Farrier works on each leg. Plain muscle exhaustion, poised on only 3 legs for long times.
Some Farriers won’t work with stocks, can be less than your best choice for a quality job. But many draft owners don’t care a lot about the quality. They want cheap hoof shortening, shoes of some kind nailed on to show with. Stocks allow a person to do that to an unwilling/untrained horse.
1 Like
wow, I think my farrier is okay with stocks. I do not need shoes or any thing cosmetic!! Just need their feet done, frogs trimmed back and so on. I’ve also seen a tilt table. I do’n’t hthink they need that (I hope!) but really, just whatever they need for comfort. I gather they have both been done in stocks before. Just out of interest, where do people keep their stocks on their property? Do they live outside? inside?
At the place where I used to board, the owner bought a Percheron mare. The mare was trained to drive and had decent ground manners. But she had always been trimmed and shod in stocks. After one failed farrier appointment with out stocks, her new owner bought stocks, and that worked fine.
The mare was not the world’s most amiable animal, and my sense was that the previous owner (who was also her breeder) basically just always did all of her horses in stocks for both farrier and vet.
The boarding barn owner put the stocks under the overhang of the barn roof when they weren’t being used, right up next to the back of the barn.
1 Like
Thanks so much! So…they’re able to be moved, obviously. And not by the same crew that built Stonehenge or the pyramids?? I’m hoping the stocks will give my boy a break, he’s heavy, he has shivers and his hind end is weak. He needs support. Great info and thank you!
The stocks she had were different than the one you pictured. She bought hers used from a farm auction house. It was metal, and it might actually have been used for cattle previously.
Anyway, it was movable.
thank you so much!! Well, the darn thing is ordered. And yes, it does hoave the dreaded, “some assembly required” can’t imagine but i’ll fin dout. Have to figure out where to PUT it…not mobile (1200 lbs) at least not by me!!! so, hmmm. but, will learn more and it would appear I am getting set up for drafties!! 
