Pam has shoes!

So yesterday I had two good things happen.  1) I found a farrier that will shoe drafts, and 2) I found a farrier that was able to shoe Pam without stocks!!

When I got Pam, she would not let anyone lift her feet.  I’ve been working with her for the past year on this, and I am at the point now, where I can clean out each hoof for as long as I need.  She’s not a real witch about it, but after a few minutes, she does tire of it and her true mare self comes out.

The farrier is Oliver Jetton.  Oliver is amazing at his job.  He’s 60 years old, but he can still shoe a draft with no problems.  He brought a young apprentice with him and between the two of them, they did 4 shoes on a draft in 2 hours.  Pretty good!

Rachel went first.  She was pretty decent, and the most noteworthy event from her trimmings was when Oliver asked me if she was walking bad a month or two ago.  I said yes, and explained that she was walking really delicately on hard surfaces.  He showed me on her sole where bruises were.  He said it takes 2 months for a bruised sole to come to the surface where you can see it on the sole of a hoof.  So, it was kinda cool to see the areas where Rachael was sore.  He said it looked like the bruising was from walking on rocks.  Rachael’s hooves are growing out nicely, and she had a lot more sidewall to nail the shoes to this time around.

Next came Pam.  This was where I got worried.  I just told him I really wanted the fronts done and that I didn’t know how cooperative she would be for the rears.  Oliver had brought shoes with him that were already set up with Borium.  Oliver took over and trimmed up the first front hoof.  Pam was great for the trim, and then when they were notching the front of the hoof for the toe clip, she started to get a little intolerant.  This is where Oliver’s experience came in.  Before she got too antsy and we got too agitated with her, he stopped everything and got out a 2 foot long piece of small nylon rope that was hooked to a lead rope.  He then said that we were going to calm Pam down with it.  The young apprentice told me that I was going to be impressed by this trick.

Each end of the small rope had loops in it.  Oliver looped one rope around the halter on the right side, then he ran the other side through the halter on the other side.  Then with a sweeping motion of his hand, he pulled on the rope, and slid the rope so that it was running up between Pam’s upper gum and her upper lip.  He then stood there and pulled gently on the lead rope with that rope on it.  He then explained to me that up on the top of the gum between the lip and gum, are some endorphin glands, and that putting pressure on them causes endorphins to release into the horse, basically, tranquilizing the horse naturally.  I had never heard of this, and was a little skeptical.  I was soon corrected.

Five minutes later, Pam’s head began to droop and her eye lids began getting heavy.  Oliver and Dakota (the apprentice) got back to work and the next thing I knew, Pam was shoed.  I was very impressed and thought this was a very neat trick.  I took some pictures of it so that I could show y’all.  Look at Pam’s head and eyes in the pictures to see how relaxed she was feeling.

I was very impressed with Oliver.  He really knows his stuff, and his natural horsemanship ways are great.  He does not get mean with a horse, even when they are acting out.  He’s a true master of his trade and I’m very glad I found him as a farrier.  Oliver works out of Winsboro, which is the Sulphur Springs area.  I would recommend him to anyone.