This article is intended to show the basics of horseshoeing. Please get a little more experience before you try it yourself.

Horses have to have new shoes every 6 to 8 weeks for 3 primary reasons: the hoof grows downward about 3/8 to 1/2 inch in this time, the shoes wear & the nail heads wear.

In this article I’m resetting Joyce’s front shoes and putting new ones on the rear.

1. The first step is remove the old shoe. In these next two pictures I’m doing that.  First I cut the old nail clinches (when the shoe is put on the ends of the nails are folded over to hold the nail on).

In the next picture, I’m using a tool called the pullers to remove the old shoe.  I start at the heel of the shoe and pry it upward a little.  Then I start pulling the nails out. In the end I pull the shoe off.  Pull in with the pullers so you don’t rip off a piece of the outside hoof wall.

2. Then the hoof has to be prepared for the new shoe.  Basically, we have to trim away about 3/8 of an inch of old hoof.  Here I’m using a hoof knife to cut away excess frog (the fleshy V in the bottom center), I also cut a 3/8 inch deep channel about 1/2 inch from the edge of the hoof.  This is so my nippers can trim the hoof wall back. I also scrape away a little bit of the sole towards the middle.

There are two hoof knives, one for the left hand and one for the right.  The left hand knife I’m using has the cutting edge closest to me.

3. Then the hoof wall is trimmed with the nippers. You have to be very careful here to trim it so you will have a flat hoof.  The toe seems to grow faster then the heel, so only trim about 3/16” from the heel and trim on a slant, so you trim 3/8” to 1/2” at the toe.  If you take too much hoof from the heel, it will cause the horse’s heel to drop, stretching the large tendon in the back of his leg (flexure tendon) and cause him to go lame.

4. After the wall is trimmed, the hoof is rasped flat. This is done so that the shoe has a flat surface to sit on. It also gives the final shape to the hoof. For a final shape you want the horse to be balanced over his feet, with both hooves the same height. Angle is important too. The outside of the hoof should slant up at a 45 to 55 degree angle.

Some farriers don’t use a rasp.  They still do it the old way where they just press a hot shoe on the hoof so the shoe will sit flat.