Trimming 8 Hooves

I was surprised and amused at the number of comments about trimming 8 hooves in one evening when I shared it both on the blog and Facebook last week. While I thank those of you who think I'm superwoman for doing this, I have to reveal the truth: I'm not! (Well, duh.)

What I am though, is organized about my trimming schedule. I have my guys on a 2-ish week schedule for maintenance trims. That way, when I have to trim its always minor. Just a tiny tweak here and there to modify small things. It saves me sweat and it saves my horses from a potential horrible error on my part that lames them up. (Also, guys, its WINTER. Everything trimming-wise is easy with the cold temps! No sweating! YAY!)

But two weeks is, like ALWAYS! You shriek. Eh. Yes. Kind of.

But its not, too bad, really!

Sometimes I do completely skip doing anything. I'm fortunate that my horses (especially Q) do a lot of self-trimming through their turn out situation and their work schedule - I try to work my horses barefoot as much as possible! I still set a time every 2-ish weeks where I plan to complete a full trim/assessment. If I note that they'd be fine waiting until the next time. And sometimes, especially with Griffin, I'm guilty of passing things off as "okay" even when I could probably stand to bring his toes back a bit. (Though sweating through it later when its more work has taught me the lesson of NOT doing this often!)

This schedule/timeline works so great for me and the horses. It lets me let their hooves dictate what I should do without risking some huge crazy issue later. I observe and learn. I modify a little at a time and see if my modification was appropriate or if what I did is replicated by the horse in a short time because they really NEED what appeared to me as trim-worthy.

I'm still learning so much about trimming and hooves and their function for each horse vs. horses as a whole, but tell you what: I've got my guys pretty well figured. The one area of mystery for me is just how their hooves want to change size as time goes on. The best I can do for now is just to continue with my slow, steady maintenance trims and frequent observations. With patience, all will be fine.