Finding the right furrier school to meet a prospective student’s needs is not much different than the long ordeal friends have gone though when trying to decide where to go to college or what subject to study.

Facing an examination of their educational programs by the American Farrier’s Association and stung by criticism in an AFA task force report on farrier education, the majority of private farrier school owners in the United States have banded together in a new group called the American Farriers Education Council.

Among roughly 75 AFA members, educators, suppliers and non-members who attended the mid-September “open forum” sponsored by the American Farrier’s Association, nobody spoke in favor of regulating and licensing farriers.