At each year’s International Hoof-Care Summit, attendees are asked to fill out surveys to help the American Farriers Journal staff learn more about farrier wants and needs.

This survey data also helps us learn essential information on how farriers operate their businesses. In this article, check out the facts and figures behind how Summit attendees ranked in several specific categories involved in equine footcare.

Thanks goes to three of the “IHCS Educational Partners,” — Life Data Labs, SmartPak and Vettec — for their help in compiling this survey data.

Backyard Horses, Steel Shoes

Working with backyard horses continues to make up the majority of footcare work for most farriers. This includes many farriers who specialize in meeting the footcare needs of specific disciplines.As you would expect, 96% of farriers use steel shoes, followed by two-thirds who also apply aluminum shoes in a portion of their hoof-care work. More than half of farriers apply shoes with frog support.

Product, Advice, Recommendations

With farriers making hundreds of visits (often weekly or monthly) in a year’s time to horse barns, they see more good and bad management ideas, health concerns, nutritional mistakes, foot problems and product usage than any other equine professionals.

Because of what they see and learn during visits to other horse operations, farriers are continually asked for their ideas and recommendations on a wide variety of equine, farm and other products. This includes questions about what tractor to buy, what tack to use, what bits to use, what supplements to…