Amy Vickers Farrier Services

25/10/2025

23/10/2025

There is a very dangerous and misleading statement being made on the internet.

Quote
“Laminitis is not caused by diet”

I urge you to use caution if you choose to believe this.

I am a student of the hoof for the past 10 years and I am mentored by Prof Chris Pollitt, the pioneer who discovered the insulin relationship to laminitis. I beg you to be very careful with what you hear out there being touted by lay people.

Horses will die unnecessary painful excruciating deaths if you follow this misinformation.

By ignoring the well understood relationship between high insulin and laminitis you may be inclined to turn out your ponies onto the rich grass. Apparently it’s said that a balanced trim is the key- which I do not totally agree with.

Once the genie is out of the bottle and the laminae are failing due to high insulin stretching and snapping the laminar attachments of bone to inner hoof wall then good luck getting it back.

Is it worth the risk?

Have you seen laminitis appear in the spring when the grass starts to grow. Or after a long hot summer, when the rains start, and boom, laminitis rears its head. Why is that?

Why do many horses suffer laminitis after getting into the grain shed and gourged themselves? Is it the grain or the trim?

Trimming is important, but you cannot trim your way into preventing or treating laminitis without looking far deeper into the cause. Diet and insulin go hand in hand.

Do you think that these lay people that come up with such crazy and dangerous statements that are said as if they are fact have actually been in the lab and done any research?

These are frightening times my friends.

Anyone can say anything and mislead us.

Maybe it is intentional, it just feeds the algorithm and everyone comments and argues and shouts and the ones dropping bombshell dangerous statements just rub their hands in glee at the carnage.

It’s sick.
It’s dangerous
I follow the science.

This is my position statement.

27/09/2025

12/09/2025

Absolutely appalling behaviour on behalf of Daisy Alexis Bicking and the International School of Integrative Hoof Care, very disappointing.

15/08/2025

Remember to keep an eye on your horses and ponies as we approach Spring! 🌸 ☀️ 💐

22/07/2025

Fantastic opportunity to grow your knowledge and become a more informed horse owner! Plus, trimming cadaver legs is lots of fun and a great way to get involved and have a go without worrying you’ll do something wrong! 😁

Schedule your appointment online Firenza Park Equine Services

18/07/2025

Feet are kind of no one’s and everyone’s problem at the same time. Until some poor sucker needs to work on the feet they are not really a problem. Then when the farriers been kicked across the flat they quickly become everyone’s problem and everyone’s fault.

The owner didn’t imprint the horse and pick them up as it was sliding out of the womb. If an owner is confident and competent then it’s great if they can start picking up feet early. If they are scared and teach them to kick then they are probably best to leave it to the next person.

That’s when it becomes the breakers fault. Most breakers are not farriers. Some will get a farrier in to shoe or trim them. And that’s fine as long as they teach them to stand and allow the farrier to work unmolested.

Finally if it’s managed to sneak through and gets a bit grown up when it gets its first bit of work done to its feet and it kicks the farrier it really quickly becomes everyone’s problem and everyone else’s fault. And it’s a really slippery slope. Good farriers will not let themselves be kicked. They will sack the horse the owner and everyone else. The next farrier will not be as good and he will quickly blame the last farrier the breaker and the stallions mother. The horse will get a hack job done by the hack farrier and eventually it’ll just stop getting its feet done altogether.

The only person who is not really responsible for getting a horse to stand and get its feet done is probably the farrier. Unless you’re paying him to train on your horse they should expect to arrive and leave in the same condition.

There’s some obligation on the farrier though. They should be fit and up to the job. If a horse is playing up because the farriers gut stops them from bending low enough then it’s awful hard to blame the poor old horse if it fidgets.

I don’t care how your horses bred I don’t care if it jumps a metre eighty slides 10 metres and runs 1d times. I just want it to stand while the farrier works on it.