hoof trimmer (artifact #14)

This artifact, a tool from days gone by, was used many times both by my grandfather and father.

A hoof trimmer is simply a giant type of nail clipper for horses, fashioned very much like a giant pair of pliers.  Looking at the photograph, notice that only one side has a sharp cutter and the opposing side acts as an anvil.  The working faces are actually offset so that they do not touch when they come together.  The blunt anvil side is only for holding the inner hoof while the cutting edge bites into the hoof for removal of a small bite on the lower edge.  Cutting away of hoof material is from the outside to the inside to avoid splitting the hoof.  This maintains integrity for a proper fit of a horseshoe and also avoids injuring the horse, which is of major concern.  As they say, Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

When shoeing an animal, Dad was always careful not to drive the horseshoe nails too deep as they would sometimes go into the quick and cause the horse to limp with pain.  Of course the horse could not work well in this condition, and the farm did not need a lame animal.  Horseshoe nails are made with a little less material on one side of the tip so that when it is driven into the hoof it tends to turn outward.  Dad would always bend the tip of the nail slightly before driving it into the hoof.  He was just giving this outward turn a boost for a positive early exit of the hoof.

The steel horseshoe should be mated to the hoof flat and smooth with no air gaps.  The nail file for a horse was a course rasp, used when mating the shoe to the hoof.  After the horseshoe was nailed in place and the nails well set, the hoof was given a neat dressing with the rasp.  This was for practical purposes and also made the appearance appealing.

Charles D. Doyle  5/8/03