What is the difference between cold shoeing and hot shoeing or why do some farriers cold shoe and some hot shoe? These are questions I get asked a lot. It all comes down to what the farrier was taught or just farrier preference, I only cold shoe. I have a lot of reasons why too. First, let’s start with what is cold shoeing and what is hot shoeing for those who don’t know.

    Hot shoeing is when a horse shoe is applied to a horses hoof hot from a forge. The farrier must have perfect temperature in the shoe to apply it. The shoe can be to hot and cause interior damage. Hot shoeing is a skill not for people that don’t know what they are doing. From what I know hot shoeing was the traditional way of applying iron horse shoes till technology was good enough to make a good rasp.

    When applying a shoe to the bottom of a horses hoof both the shoe and hoof surfaces must be completely identical. This keeps the shoe from rocking there by loosening the nails and coming off. In hot shoeing this is easy because you take the shoe surface and burn the hoof to match the shoe surface with the heat of the shoe. The heat melts the hoof wall. If the shoe isn’t level, when applied hot to the hoof, the hoof surface will match the unlevelness of the shoe.

    That is also one bad thing about hot shoeing. You don’t have to have anything level. This is improperly balancing the hoof. I’ve seen shoes so bad that when the horse is on a concrete pad a little kid can pick it out. Granit not all farriers when hot shoeing will do work like that but on long, hot, days it is easy to make a mistake.

    Cold shoeing is when a horse shoe is applied to the hoof with no heat (cold). In cold shoeing leveling a horse shoe is imperative to keeping the shoes on. First one must have a level surface to check for levelness, usually requiring a wide face anvil. The farrier shapes the shoe to the hoof then levels the shoe. Next the shoe is taken to the horse and the hoof is checked for levelness by rocking the diagonals of the shoe on the hoof. The rasp is used to take down the high points of the hoof till levelness is achieved.

    You can still heat the shoe to shape the shoe and as long as the shoe is not applied hot to the hoof it is still considered cold shoeing. Most farriers do heat the shoe to shape it but this is not necessary. Cold shoeing also takes great skill to get right. In hot shoeing you just have to know how hot you can have the shoe but in cold shoeing you have to have an eye for leveling.

    A lot of farriers chose to hot shoe because of the easiness to pair the shoe and the hoof. They also have done studies to determine that the heat will kill bacteria but in cases like white line the heat may kill bacteria when applied but if the horse is put back in the environment that caused the bacteria to begin with, it will come back faster than before. Bottom line, it doesn’t fix anything.

    I prefer cold shoeing. In my opinion it takes more skill to perform cold shoeing. I take a lot of pride in cold shoeing. It is also cheaper to operate a cold shoeing operation. A lot of horses don’t like the smoke of hot shoeing and you can’t get the smell out of your clothes easily. I think cold shoeing is faster as well unless you are doing a lot of horses in one barn. Not taking the time to properly level a hot shoer will speed ahead. You don’t have to wait for the forge to warm up or the shoes to cool down enough to apply.

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