Luke Cain Awcf farrier.

12/08/2025

Time lines in feet are something that always amaze me. The deep line in this mares feet from a bout of laminitis, 4months ago

11/08/2025

Tell me again how shoes restrict the movement of the hoof capsule 🙄. Arrows highlighting the grooves worn in the shoe, caused by the expansion and contraction on the hoof capsule.

06/08/2025

Fitting the foot you’ve trimmed is very important, maintaining a healthy hoof capsule and keeping horses comfortable is our number one priority.

06/08/2025

This time of year it’s more important what you leave in a foot than what you take away. In this video ( all be it not a great angle ) you can see what doesn’t want to easily par out I leave well alone. Our weather can be so changeable and can cause the feet to change a lot in cycle. Leaving a little more foot will keep this seahorse much happier. Cornwall Swimming Horses

19/07/2025

Well what a manic week that was. Just wanted to thank those that had very early mornings and late evening appointments this week. Think we managed to get everyone sorted 🤞

Last horse of the week wasn’t straight forward. A complicated, complete quarter crack. She was very sore, but was extremely patient. To sore to shoe so I just applied an acrylic/fiberglass mix crack patch, with a treatment channel left open to apply topical treatments.

-crack cleaned and necrotic tissue removed
-locking holes drilled either side in pyramid pattern
-area cleaned and degreased
-glue applied

🤞 she’s more comfortable soon

Video below 🤙

19/07/2025

17/07/2025

Evening everyone, we’ve managed to book a week away 20th - 27th. As you can see from the picture attached to this post, I’ll be fairly unavailable.

Dewi may or may not be here due to the impending arrival of his new mini Welsh person . He could be on paternity leave or riding his new bicycle. 🤷‍♂️

Either way, get in touch if I deem your situation life threatening I’ll do my best to arrange cover from another of our great local farriers, or Dewi will be on his way.

Soo…if you’re delightful fluffy is plotting to try and ruin my day, he/she - they or them, has until Saturday evening to come up with something extraordinary.

As all ways, may the odds forever be in your favour 🤙

03/07/2025

This one certainly kept us guessing.

Initially thoughts from the client was an acute laminitic bout. Showing a slight improvement after a couple of weeks box rest. I went out and applied an aluminium heart bar to provide support, nothing was obvious and that was the best option at the time.

Another week later we went again, she still wasn’t showing any signs of improvement. There was a tiny amount of puss coming from her lateral heel bulb and an unusually large amount of sole/bar growth to the lateral side of her sole.

On closer examination and a lot of digging, we located a tiny black dot. Which was a nasty blackthorn, this was a very lucky pony. With some routine poulticing and regular pain relief and antibiotics, she’s looking very comfortable again.

These horses certainly like to keep us guessing. Hope you all have a great weekend 🍻

02/07/2025

Another day, another creative fluffy trying to ruin it 🤦‍♂️.

Unfortunately this is nothing new for this particular horse. A mixture of chronic shoe pulling and weak feet, has made it unsafe to nail directly on to her feet. So today we wrapped both hinds in equicast to work as a false hoof wall. This allowed us to nail on safely, keeping her in work and hopefully allow the hoof underneath to grow out.

We’ve tried various applications over the last year, so let’s keep our fingers crossed for this one 🤞

25/04/2025

We’ve seen 87 horses this week, and the penultimate one really needed a little bit extra.

This big ID mare has been on the books for many years and had never been an issue, so she deserved a bit of tlc. Showing an acute lameness a week ago , unfortunately nothing has materialised. Foot searched for an abcess and poultice.

Signs of significant bruising and abnormalities to stance and movement, have developed. So a belts and braces approach. Aluminium omnidirectional heart bar with leather pad and digital impression material. To provide maximum support and stability to her hoof capsules.

An instant improvement to stance and movement. Not perfect but much better. I am a big believer of watching horses body language, they can tell you a lot if you watch carefully.

Licking, chewing, yawning, even weight barring whilst resting are great ways of seeing how they react after being shod. This mare displayed all of these once she was shod, hopefully she will continue to improve and stay comfortable 🤞

Hope you all have a great weekend 🤙