Trimming Your Horse's Hooves

By Caryn A. Tate

The first thing to remember when thinking about trimming your horse's hooves yourself is to hire a farrier to do it first and allow you to learn more fully, or take a class or two in it. This is important because if you do a bad trimming job, sometimes it's not a big deal at all and sometimes you could make your horse lame or worse.

So be sure you really know what you're doing before beginning. Also, when you're working on your horse's hoof, you're technically holding up one-fourth of your horse's weight...so easing yourself into it is a good idea as well.

Before beginning, your horse should already be at the stage where you can comfortably, and safely, lift all his feet and hold them, or put them between your knees as a farrier does. If your horse isn't quite to this stage yet, have a farrier trim his hooves until he'll stand quietly for you. If he's impatient and pulling on you, it will only increase your chances of making a mistake.

Tools to have on hand are: a hoofknife (or pick), a good pair of nippers, and a rasp.

First, clean out the hoof with a hoofknife or hoofpick. It doesn't have to be as clean as can be, but make sure that there are no little rocks in the toe area where you'll be using your nippers. Also make sure you've cleaned out the wall areas fairly well too, so that you can see all that needs to be trimmed and cleaned up, not to mention allowing the hoof to breathe sufficiently and keeping it healthy.

By this point you should already have learned the correct length your horse's hooves should be after trimming, so using that knowledge, use the nippers to begin to trim just the toe of the hoof. Hold your horse's leg between your knees as I mentioned before and be sure it's secure. I recommend, when starting out, taking just a small amount of toe off at a time, as this allows you to really see what you're doing. It can prevent an injury to your horse and also helps you learn more quickly.

Start at the heel on one side and work your way around to the other heel. Note: the heel of a horse's hoof is especially sensitive, so pay special attention here and be extra careful.

When you've taken off the correct amount from your horse's hoof, you can usually tell not only by stepping back and looking at your horse's hoof as it sits on the ground, but by the color of the ring in the hoof's toe. As you trim the hoof, you'll begin to see a ring in the toe area that, as you trim more, becomes more pink. You'll know you've trimmed enough when the ring is there and is a good, LIGHT pink color. If it's much darker, you've trimmed more than enough.

Now it's time for the rasp. After you've finished the actual trimming of the hoof, allow your horse to stand on all fours again, on a flat piece of ground so that you can see how level his foot is. Then, pick the hoof back up and rasp down the higher side of the hoof. Again, learn as much as you can about the rasp before beginning, because it can be a tricky tool to use properly. When using the rasp for this job, use the less severe side of it. You don't want to take too much off the hoof; you just want to level it at this point.

If you've learned all about the horse's hoof beforehand, and how to properly use your tools, trimming your horse's hooves yourself is a great thing to learn--and it's a lot of fun!

About the Author:

I have lived around and worked with horses my entire life, and learned how to ride when I was a small child. Riding and training horses are great loves of mine, and I enjoy helping other people overcome training issues with their horses. I love working with horses and developing relationships with them, as well as talking about them with other people who are as passionate about the subject as I am.

Caryn may be contacted by email at  scribe_79@yahoo.com.

Article courtesy of Suite101.com.