Diary of a Horseshoer #4: To Bleed For One's Art

I never thought I'd get so many cuts and scrapes doing any profession as I have in the last couple of months. I suppose it's a natural side effect of working with sharp tools around hard hooves, but it's still annoying. I won't bother listing them all to avoid a study in skin abrasion.

On the bright side, lots of cuts come with foal season like clouds come with rain. I love all the babies, even if their tiny hooves do invite rasp slip-ups. We're working with one filly who lives at the vet right now. She was born with an oversized thyroid, a severe underbite, and knees and ankles that bend backwards because the bones and tendons weren't developed enough. Her mother rejected her, so she's been bottle fed every day of her life. She's sweet to work on, she just lays there and lets you do whatever you need to. Then she'll get up and lean on you like you're best of friends.

Other babies are a bit wilder. At our one halter horse barn, the best stud colt kept laying his ears back and chasing his own tail with bared teeth when we had to take his mother out to shoe her. He was MAD. Their owner's not looking forward to weaning time. . .

But it seems I can hardly go a week without rasping one of my fingers, cutting myself with a hoof knife, or some other stupid thing that makes me bleed. Sometimes it's a little crazy making because it's not as though stables are the cleanest places ever. I got so worried about a cut on my arm the other day that I used the same stuff I put on horse hooves if they've got a bad nail or a cut. A combination of iodine and turpentine may not feel good on a cut (ok, it feels like getting burned with a cutting torch), but that cut will NOT be infected.

Eh, the cuts heal. I still would rather be doing this than anything in the world.