... It would cost more than $1000 of taxpayer money to collect a $1000 fine...

Expecting to find at least some reference to farriery, I found the lack of such topic material to be more than interesting.

Cheers,
Mark

Not to be argumentative but... that something costs more than it is worth has never, to my knowledge, been a serious consideration in government decision making.

Also noticed that there appear to be no public veterinary forums with anywhere near the content volume, quality or participation that farriers enjoy here on the F&HRC forums. Baron has 'em all beat.

Perhaps someone else will have more luck finding topic relevant veterinary content.

Cheers,
Mark

I can answer some of these questions from my personal experience, to show that especially in rural parts of the country, where one must drive a ways to find a decent equine vet, the gray areas we talk about are much more gray. The farrier is often the authority to many owners on all horse related problems and questions. Especially when we have mixed practice vets with questionable reputations. The owner also sees the farrier much more often than the vet, and builds a confidence in the farrier's knowledge that they may not have in their veterinary options.I think the farriers opinion often dominates the owner's choice. I get asked often by owners, whether they should put a horse down. I think the opinion of the owner is often dependent on the professional opinion of whichever person they have the most faith in (in many situations). When to throw the towel in, is often when I tell them its time.We are often asked to do a PPE in relation to soundness and hoof quality, I have evaluated many horses for owners prior to purchase. A poor man's PPE, lol.no we do not put needles in joints, at least most of us don't, (but I do know some that do.)I have this sort of thing happen regularly, I have had 1AM calls, horse colic, lacerations, hurt leg, they very often call the farrier. Why, because many of our local vets have business hours, and when they are closed some just leave the name of a vet an hour and a half away to contact for emergencies (some of the mixed practice vets leave only the number for a small animal emergency hospital 2 hours away), often even if they contact an equine vet who is 1.5- 2 hours away, the vet either will not see them because they do not have an existing relationship, or would require the owner to bring the horse to their facility, if the owner cannot afford for this vet to drive down (if they could talk them into it) for an emergency at night or they dont have a horse trailer, they call the farrier to see if he can help. Some local vets don't return the owner's frantic messages in time to suit the owner, so the owner calls the farrier to find out what to do. The owners call the farrier often in the middle of the night to say "Dr so and so won't call me back, do you think you could get ahold of him for me or do you have another number, or who else would you recommend, or do you think you could come out here and handle this for me, or what should I be doing for the horse while I wait?" "Well have you tried Dr x?" "Yes no answer and no voice mail" "What about Dr Y, down in such and such town?" "I left a message on his emergency number 3 times and haven't heard back, but I don't think he comes this far." (so on and so on)Not often granted, but I have tried to help owners when a horse was in the process of dying and the owner had exhausted all efforts to get a vet out with no response.OH My, a vacation is a pipe dream. As is a weekend. So far this year I have had 1 day off and thats on par, with my average of 7-14 days off per year. However, many of the vets I know and work with not only take weekends off and close the office at 5pm, but have already taken vacations this year.exactly..I couldn't disagree more with the intensity of the days comment. In this economy especially, I know very good vets that are twittling their thumbs all day or having a coggins at 1pm and 2 vaccinations at 3, for their entire day. Some days more, and some days nothing. I cover a pretty large area, of my state, and I travel a ways a few days a week to work in an area where quality equine veterinary care is available, unlike what the situation is close to my house or further south, but still these good vets are still mighty slow business wise and have been for a few months now. Yet the farriers are still hard at it all day every day, most of the time till dark. Maybe the situation is different in your part of the country.no I wouldn't either, and that is too bad. But are you saying you wouldn't expect them to come home and spend time trying to educate themselves because their days are just soo intense and difficult? The good ones are always trying to educate themselves. Even during the day when they have nothing to do but sit in the office they are very often looking up and reading stuff on-line. I think it is a shame however that more are not involved in this sort of exchange of knowledge as we have here on this site. They may, have similar private access sites, so the general public cannot view their insecurities. Maybe there is some merit to that, but it reminds me of the days where farriers would not share any information.probably true with some, but definitely not all.

Eric Russell;227251 wrote:
Things are obviously different in rural areas. The Farrier should not be the authority on anything other than farriery. The farriers knowledge should be in farriery. If you as an individual venture into veterinary issues, I don't see that as being part of farriery.
Again, that has nothing to do with farriery.

Outside of farriery, how is your opinion professional?

I don't see why a farrier would be doing a PPE.

It was an example. We trim feet and apply shoes. At most horses will be lame for a while. Vets on the other hand can do things which will cause permanent injury or death.
Again, this isn't about farriery and is more of a rural issue.
You not getting a day off is your issue.
By intensity I meant on the mind. A farriers job really shouldn't be very stressful. Where as the duties of a vet can be stressful.

Nope, I'm saying vets have gone to school, internships, CE.... Farriers don't have to do any of this. I know they go to private forums.

I see it as being more professional.

I understand in rural areas everybody seems to be a jack of all trades out of necessity. What you do outside of farriery is non of my business. But I would hope you can differentiate when you're performing farriery and when you're performing ________ (whatever it is you want to call it).

There is no exemption for horseshoeing in many states. Even in states where there is an exemption, routine acts of corrective applications (bar shoes or pads) can be interpreted as the practice of veterinary medicine.

The point I have been trying to make over the years is that the status quo is not a good option. Twenty years ago, I do not think equine dentists figured to be in their current legal situation, and I bet they wish they could go back and change their course of action.

Anyone can float teeth here, but I think there are restrictions on removing teeth and administering sedatives

Rick I see what ur talking about. In..{rural}..area...but I tend to think its more of a money issue than thinking as the farrier the one in the know...and you know as well as I do if you do not lend what you may have learned over the years the horse will not get any treatment.......allthough I try hard not to cross the line I'm sure I have ..not often but I have gave my opinion and felt after I should have not............................................................. and In my area I don't know of anyone but a vet doing teeth

I think you may be right on this point, Pat. Veterinary schools are beginning to pay more attention to equine dentistry and will likely be turning out more veterinarians who will consider plying this trade. Not sure how all of this will play out over time, so everyone stay tuned in and we'll see what develops.

M. W. Myers, D.V.M.

. . .If you watch the vetspan video concerning this issue (amongst others) the veterinarian who spoke the longest against equine dentistry becoming legal in Arkansas (when asked) said that he would only charge 25-35 dollars for a float. Now tell me he is doing quality work for that price???

If you watch the vetspan video concerning this issue (amongst others) the veterinarian who spoke the longest against equine dentistry becoming legal in Arkansas (when asked) said that he would only charge 25-35 dollars for a float. Now tell me he is doing quality work for that price???

He probably heard that the Equine Dentistry school just outside of Weatherford, Texas is charging $35 per horse.