Keeping horse owners on a steady 6-week shoeing cycle can be quite a task.
Clients often find that it’s easier to reschedule a farrier’s visit to accommodate something else. Yet, when they do, the new date doesn’t take into account the need for prompt hoof care.
“I used to get calls from clients who would tell me, ‘I can’t make it tomorrow, can we make it next week?’” Mike Savoldi told attendees at the recent Northeast Association of Equine Practitioners Symposium in Norfolk, Va.
If you want to keep your client from stretching out the shoeing cycle too far, Savoldi suggests using a little psychology.
“A horse needs to be shod between 38 and 42 days,” says the director of the Equine Research Center in Shandon, Calif. “When I was shoeing, I changed my schedule from thinking in terms of weeks to days. Once that change was made, I found that my clients would call and tell me, ‘I can’t make it on the 23rd, can we do it on the 24th?’ So, that helped me a little bit to keep my timing.”
Do you have a helpful tip that you would like to share with your fellow farriers? Please send it to Jeff Cota at jcota@lesspub.com. If we use your tip, we’ll send you a free shirt.
