25 August 2010
Supply cost part II- Consumeables, Nails
As I stated in my last post, your base investment in shoes is just short of nine bucks on a light general use horse. I hope I got the point across that as you get into performance horses, your shoe cost can escalate dramatically.
In this post I want to start talking about consumables, meaning items we use every day, and once they are gone, they're gone. These items are rasps, hoof knives, and what this post centers on, horse nails.
One thing that I get sick of is when farriers complain about the cost of horse nails. We as a trade need to consider that less than 1 tenth of a percent of Americans shoe horses and the fact that there is more than one company willing to take the risk to manufacture such a specific item for such a a small market should be respected and not disparaged.
With that out of the way, I have a question for you. When was the last time you were driving down the road and threw a roll of dimes out of the window? Chances are the answer is "never." The reason I used the roll of dimes analogy is because, for all intents and purposes, horse nails on average cost between 7.9 and 8.5 cents each, regardless of size or manufacturer. And by the time you add in tax and/or shipping, a dime each is an easier way to predict nail cost. At some point in the near future, count the number of driven and bent or driven and pulled nails in the bottom of your shoeing box. If you can count 50 of them, that's $5.00. While it doesn't seem like much over the span of a year, it can add up, especially if you have an apprentice who is just learning to drive nails. I hate to think what I cost the Old Man when he started me out driving the bigger nails (city 8's an up.)
So in the scenario that you shoe six horses a day, five days a week, and you eight nail every foot, you're looking at an annual nail cost $4,992. That's only if you're one of the select few who has been touched by the hand of God who never bends a nail and drives perfect nail lines. Sadly, I'm not one of those guys, so I'm probably looking at between $5,000 and $5,500 a year in nails, and I generally only use six nails a foot.
One guaranteed strategy to save on your nail costs is to get proficient in your shoe shaping. The better the shoe fits, the better the nails drive. I'm learning this as I prepare for my Journeyman test. A few months back I was a little saddened by a comment Jacob Manning made in the American Farriers Journal. As many of you know, Jacob uses handmade shoes and the first time he nailed on a machine made shoe was at his Certified test, and he wondered how people used them. I have to say that I have found through my practice runs, even my handmades nail up better than the machine made shoes, so I can see his point. But that's a another story for a different day.
In this post I want to start talking about consumables, meaning items we use every day, and once they are gone, they're gone. These items are rasps, hoof knives, and what this post centers on, horse nails.
One thing that I get sick of is when farriers complain about the cost of horse nails. We as a trade need to consider that less than 1 tenth of a percent of Americans shoe horses and the fact that there is more than one company willing to take the risk to manufacture such a specific item for such a a small market should be respected and not disparaged.
With that out of the way, I have a question for you. When was the last time you were driving down the road and threw a roll of dimes out of the window? Chances are the answer is "never." The reason I used the roll of dimes analogy is because, for all intents and purposes, horse nails on average cost between 7.9 and 8.5 cents each, regardless of size or manufacturer. And by the time you add in tax and/or shipping, a dime each is an easier way to predict nail cost. At some point in the near future, count the number of driven and bent or driven and pulled nails in the bottom of your shoeing box. If you can count 50 of them, that's $5.00. While it doesn't seem like much over the span of a year, it can add up, especially if you have an apprentice who is just learning to drive nails. I hate to think what I cost the Old Man when he started me out driving the bigger nails (city 8's an up.)
So in the scenario that you shoe six horses a day, five days a week, and you eight nail every foot, you're looking at an annual nail cost $4,992. That's only if you're one of the select few who has been touched by the hand of God who never bends a nail and drives perfect nail lines. Sadly, I'm not one of those guys, so I'm probably looking at between $5,000 and $5,500 a year in nails, and I generally only use six nails a foot.
One guaranteed strategy to save on your nail costs is to get proficient in your shoe shaping. The better the shoe fits, the better the nails drive. I'm learning this as I prepare for my Journeyman test. A few months back I was a little saddened by a comment Jacob Manning made in the American Farriers Journal. As many of you know, Jacob uses handmade shoes and the first time he nailed on a machine made shoe was at his Certified test, and he wondered how people used them. I have to say that I have found through my practice runs, even my handmades nail up better than the machine made shoes, so I can see his point. But that's a another story for a different day.
Labels: costs of shoeing a horse
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