First Farrier Appointment!

Ok so technically calling this a "first" farrier appointment is a misnomer because obviously Zoebird is four and well taken care of, so obviously she has had her feet done before. I mean. Her former owner, a farrier, picked her feet up and hammered on them for me to show me that she was fine. 

O HAI ITS U

Buuuuuut.

You know. You take a baby horse from the forested mountains that she grew up in and drop her in the desert with a bunch of strangers and completely change the expectations for her life, and it's a bit stupid to expect everything to stay the same.

So anyways. Zozobird has fabulous Percheron feet. She's four. She's never worn shoes. She was definitely due for a trim.

It's stupidly hot (still) and the flies are TERRIBLE (don't get me started on dumping pig manure on fields right now) and work has been exhausting, so when I showed up at the barn and my friend was having the farrier out, I begged us an appointment so we wouldn't have to roast in the sun-toasted arena.

IT BURNS US PRECIOUS

Anywhoodle. I'm that weird dork that asks a million questions of qualified professionals so I watched him work on a couple other horses and tried not to be too annoying, then we pulled out Zoe. 

#adultammystrong yes those are heels at the barn

I'd told him about the draft cross thing and when I said "momma was a paint" he started on like "paints tend to have trouble with their digital cushion like the one we just looked at" and then I said daddy was a Percheron and he was immediately "PERCHERONS HAVE AMAZING FEET" and then he looked at her and was like "omg yay percheron feet!" (my interpretation after a long hot day. not his actual words). 

I warned him Zoe was a baby with a baby attention span and baby issues. 

I didn't really need to. 

SMOOSHY NOSE

Zoe was all "o hai" and then a total superstar. We talked about transitioning from a mountain environment to the desert a little and we talked about her changing from teenage feet to adult horse feet--he commented that baby feet tend to be more spongy whereas adult hooves are harder. You can actually see the growth line of the grown up feet coming in on Zoe, which is pretty cool. 

He raved about her big, solid feet with excellent concavity. He also said that if at all possible, he likes to leave shoes off of babies so that they can keep growing and developing--apparently if the shoe helps them compensate for structural weakness while they're growing, then the foot kinda stops developing in the younger horses. I've never had a proper baby before so that was a fascinating insight. Good news is that Zoe is doing great barefoot, so we're greenlighted to continue on. 

unrelated photo of farrier and vet consult over a mobile xray for a different horse

I mean. It's probably silly to write up like "my horse got a trim and it was a total non-event", but it's just so weird to me to have the horse that's non-dramatic, well-behaved, and has awesome feet. Like. Awesome.

<3 Ms Zoebird