Shoeing Shop

[Cross_TFS]

I know I have read and heard of other poeple doing this I just wanted an honest opinion from you folks. I am wanting to set up a shop here where I live for my blacksmithing and horseshoeing. My idea is that eventually the people will bring their horses too me. And I can have stalls for them to stay in until the afternoon when they come back to pick them up. I actually think I read about someone doing this on this bulletin board. Seems like they had hamburgers and hotdogs and it turned into a gathering place. That is what I am talking about. I live on Hwy5 in Arkansas on the way to Mtn View and we get a lot of traffic. That is the reason I am wanting to open the smithy shop to get people to stop in and eventually I will open a shop in Mtn View to showcase and sell things. But I figured the farrier shop would work well too. I am planning on making everything nice and secure down to a safe place to shoe the horse. Along with a comfortable area for people to wait in. What is the opinion? I know it will take a while to get this going but once it starts I think it would be a great thing and might be a niche'.
Just a thought.

Thomas
Farrier
Service

[Mike Ferrara]

I know that I'd love to step out my back door and be at work especially since some stops don't have a very good place set up for shoeing horses (driveways and stuff).

I'm afraid, though, that around here I'd have to do all my shoeing on Saturday and Sunday if I made people come to me .

[Gary Hill]

They also drive in unexpectly. Late at night on their way home and early mornings before shows. If you can stand it it works OK! Sometimes you just have to lock your gate! Good Luck! Gary

[Cross_TFS]

Do you do this Gary?

Joel

[Dave Purves]

Another farrier and I do this. We decided not to do it at our homes, cause we didn't want someone stopping by at 10 o'clock at night needing a quick fix before the show and I've already had a couple of cold ones. So we decided to do it at one of our clients barns. This works for a few reasons.
1. They have a very, very nice facility
-full cross country course
-six outdoor dressage rings
-one huge indoor arena
-and 10-15 outdoor pens that we could put horses in
-quite a few empty stalls they use for shows that we could put horses in
2. They hold two very large 2 day horse trials that bring in people from about 5 states
3. They have world class trainers and clinicians come in year round

All of these things help our shop, cause alot of horse owners know this place and associate it with great things. We only operate the shop one day a week, as we build clients loyal to the shop. We're open friday, so the owner can drop the horse off thursday night, pay the barn a stall fee, and there is plenty of room for them to drop the trailer right there at the barn. We get there friday morning pull the horse out and go to work. We have many clients that come up get the horse shod, and then pay a fee to use the cross country course or the arenas. This is good business for us and the barn. We've done it for about a year and a half and we are almost ready to go to two days a week. The drawbacks are this,

1. -Most farriers are farriers cause they don't want to work in an office or factory, we like the idea of going from one place to the other. When you're in the shop you're there all day. whether you have one horse or twenty you have to get the work done and then wait for more to show up. We modified to people calling and making appointments after about 6 months.
2 -We have two sets of everything, anvils, forges, hand tools (both forging and shoeing) and a pretty good inventory of shoes and nails that stay in the shop. In the begining we just drug everything out of our trucks, but thas was more work than it was worth.
3. -You don't get to pick who pulls into the shop. And it's hard to make someone that just trailered 2 hours to you to load the horse up and go back home cause the horse is bad.
4. -People will expect to pay less to come to you. In most cases alot less. It is not worth someone coming to you if you are only going to charge them 25% of what you get when you go there. We charge the same. In fact this year we charged more to come to the shop.

Just be carefull how you set things up, learn from your mistakes, and don't lose money. If I had to start a shop without the facility we have I would try to get in at a vet clinic. Somewhere were people seem to trailer their horses anyway.
just my opinion
good luck
Dave Purves CF :)

[Gary Hill]

I had to stop them coming to my shop due to the reasons Dave said above. I ONLY do emergency work for existing clients now. Gary

[Gordon Derry]

A shop is a great idea. I opened 3 years ago after shoeing on the road for more than 25 years. I think that appointments are necessary to control the flow of work so you have the time to do high quality work because that is what brings people back. It has taken almost 3 years to gradually switch from road to shop and I think there is probably afew people that will never come to a shop. Sure wish I had done this 25 years ago! Gordon

[T.N. Trosin]

I wish there was an all of above or most of the above on the survey.
The one thing you guys forgot though, Trailer parking.
People dropping horses off in the wee hours probably arn't going to want to take the horse trailer with them to work.

[calshoer]

I would love to have a shop but am not living where I can build one. I was wanting to answer the poll in more than one category but it wouldn't let me . For me the work hours would be less bcause of the time I would not be on the road, and that would lead to more sanity because I could do my appointments ,the bookeeping, and the internet, while in between horses on slow days and free up my evenings. As well, the working conditions would be better so I could do those clients that I now turn away beause they have no decent place to work safely.(its really rural here).
I would not lower my price. What I do is well worth what I charge. Right now I charge a lot more than the the farriers in the closest vicinity, and for the more distant in the more affluent areas I add on a good trip charge . I could just knock off the trip charge for the ones who travel in from those areas.
As to clients hauling in a odd hours, geesh just lock the darn gate at five o'clock like any other business and post a sign..."SHOEING BY APPOINTMENTS ONLY".
I knew a stable owner who had a sign on the gate to his private residence (on the pemises) that said "Don't dare knock on my door after six oclock unless the barn is burning down or a horse is dying. Anything else can wait till tomorrow. " And boy did he mean it. You only did that once. Patty

[Gary Hill]

Locked gates and signs don't stop some that think it's OK to have a shoe tacked on a 10PM cause they want to rope or run barrels the next day! It would be one thing to have a shop, not at the house. Not as simple but you could keep your privicy. Gary