There is no state licence to check. Farriery in the United States is not a licensed trade, so anyone may call themselves a farrier and certification is voluntary. That makes the American Farrier's Association's credentials worth understanding rather than skimming: the entry-level Certified Farrier is open to farriers with at least one year of experience and requires a written exam and a practical assessment, and the Certified Journeyman Farrier, the highest AFA level, is open to candidates with at least two years of experience who have already completed the CF level and requires written and practical testing plus forging a specified bar shoe within a time limit. Certification is a floor, not a verdict. The rest of this page is what to check beyond it.
Why the credentials matter more here than in other trades
In a licensed trade, the licence answers the basic question and you spend your effort on the rest. In farriery there is no licence, so the basic question is still open and voluntary certification is the only structured evidence available.
What the AFA levels actually are:
Certified Farrier (CF). The first level of AFA certification. Open to farriers with at least one year of horseshoeing experience who have demonstrated knowledge and skill to perform hoof care on a professional basis. Assessed by written exam and practical assessment.
Certified Journeyman Farrier (CJF). The highest level of AFA certification. Open to candidates with at least two years of horseshoeing experience who have completed the CF level. Requires written and practical testing, and the forging of a specific bar shoe within a prescribed time limit.
What certification does not tell you: whether they turn up, whether they communicate, whether they work well with your veterinarian, and whether they are the right person for your particular horse. Plenty of experienced farriers are not AFA certified. The credential is evidence, not a substitute for the rest of this page.
What to ask before you book
Ask these on the phone, before a first visit rather than after.
"Are you certified, and at what level?" A straight question with a straight answer. Take an uncertified farrier with a long local reputation seriously; take a defensive reaction to the question as information.
"How long have you been shoeing, and where did you train?"
"What is your normal booking interval, and how far ahead do you book?" This tells you whether you can actually hold a cycle with them. The published guidance varies: UF/IFAS Extension puts most horses at five to eight weeks, and Minnesota Extension's guidance runs six to eight weeks in summer and six to twelve in winter. If your horse needs a shorter cycle and they book ten weeks out, that is a mismatch you will discover the hard way.
"What happens if my horse loses a shoe between visits?" Ask this before it happens, not on the day it does.
"Do you work with veterinarians on lameness or foot cases?" Some of the best work in this trade happens jointly, and a farrier who is comfortable coordinating with your vet is worth finding before you need it.
"Who else do you do in this area?" Then talk to those owners, and look at their horses' feet.
What to look at, rather than ask
Their existing clients' horses. Not the show ones. The ordinary ones, at the end of a cycle, in a normal barn.
How they handle a horse. Patience with a horse who is difficult about a foot is a working skill, not a personality trait, and you will see it in ten minutes.
Whether they explain what they are doing. A farrier who tells you what they are seeing is giving you information you can act on for the next six weeks. One who does not is leaving you to guess.
Whether they look at the whole horse move, rather than only at the foot in their hands.
Whether they turn up when they said. This is not a minor point on a schedule you are trying to keep.
"My horse is footsore after. Is that normal?"
This is the most common worry owners have and the one they are least likely to raise, so it is worth being direct about.
It is a conversation with the farrier, and if it recurs, with your veterinarian. Not a forum question, and not a reason to change farrier silently.
Say it plainly at the next visit: "He was short on the concrete for two days after the last trim." A farrier who wants to know that will adjust. A farrier who dismisses it has told you something.
If a horse is more than briefly sore, or lame rather than short, that stops being a farriery conversation. Merck describes a hoof abscess as "the most common reason for a non-weight-bearing lameness in horses," and lists an increased digital pulse or higher palpable hoof temperature among the examination findings (Merck Veterinary Manual, Hoof Abscesses in Horses, read 2026-08-28). A sore horse after a visit is not automatically about the visit, and a veterinary examination is the way to find out rather than a guess about the trim.
Take the digital pulse comparison to that call. The technique is in how to find and feel a digital pulse, and the reason it is worth learning in advance rather than in an emergency is that you cannot recognise a change from a baseline you never took, which is the argument in your horse's baseline.
Keeping them
Good farriers are booked and the ones with room are not always the ones you want. What keeps a good one is not money, it is being an easy client.
- Have the horse caught, dry and ready. Not in the field. Not muddy to the knee.
- Have him standing for a foot. A horse who will not hold a foot up is a horse who gets less good work done, because time is spent on the argument. This is groundwork, and it is yours.
- Have somewhere level, dry and lit. A farrier working on uneven ground in a dark aisle is working with a handicap you gave them.
- Book the next visit before they leave. This is the single most effective thing on the list.
- Pay on the day.
- Tell them what you noticed. Uneven wear, a foot that smells, a lost shoe, a day he was footsore, the ground he has been on. That is the information they cannot get in the hour they are there, and it is exactly what the daily check in picking out feet collects.
- Do not stretch the cycle to save money without saying so. Merck names irregular farrier care among the conditions associated with thrush (Merck Veterinary Manual, Thrush in Horses, read 2026-08-28), and UF/IFAS notes that wet conditions may need more frequent visits rather than fewer. If cost is the constraint, say it out loud and ask what is possible.
If you board
At many barns the farrier comes with the yard, which removes the choice and creates a different set of questions. It is worth knowing before you move in whether you may use your own farrier, who the barn's is, and whether the visit interval is fixed.
Those are the sort of things a tour does not cover, and we list what to ask in choosing a boarding barn. What each level of board actually includes, including whether farrier costs are separate, is set out in full board versus pasture board.
When to change farrier
Not lightly, and not silently. Farriery is a relationship with your horse's feet over years, and the first two visits from anyone new are spent learning a foot the last person already knew.
Reasons that are worth a change: they do not turn up or cannot hold your cycle; they will not discuss what they are doing; your horse is repeatedly sore after visits and the conversation has gone nowhere; they will not coordinate with your veterinarian on a foot case.
Reasons that are not: one bad visit, an opinion you read online, or a disagreement about barefoot versus shod that neither of you has evidence for. On that last one, the published evidence is much thinner than the argument, and we set out exactly what has and has not been measured in barefoot or shod, the honest version.
FAQ
Do farriers need a licence in the United States?
No. Farriery is not a licensed trade in the US, which is why voluntary certification carries more weight here than it would in a regulated trade.
What does AFA certification mean?
The American Farrier's Association's Certified Farrier level is open to farriers with at least one year of horseshoeing experience and involves a written exam and a practical assessment. Certified Journeyman Farrier is the association's highest level, open to candidates with at least two years of experience who have already completed CF, and requires written and practical testing plus forging a specified bar shoe within a time limit.
Should I only use a certified farrier?
Certification is evidence rather than a verdict, and many experienced farriers are not certified. Use it as one input alongside their existing clients' horses, their handling, their reliability and whether they will work with your vet.
My horse is footsore after every trim. Is that normal?
It is a conversation to have with your farrier at the next visit rather than a thing to accept, and if it recurs or if the horse is lame rather than briefly short, it becomes a veterinary question. Merck names hoof abscess as the most common cause of non-weight-bearing lameness, so a sore horse after a visit is not automatically about the visit.
How do I keep a good farrier?
Be easy to work with. Horse caught, dry and standing for a foot, level lit ground, next visit booked before they leave, paid on the day, and tell them what you noticed between visits.
Can I use my own farrier if I board?
That depends on the barn and it is worth asking before you move in rather than after. Some yards have a farrier who comes as part of the arrangement.
Sources consulted: American Farrier's Association certification levels, checked 2026-08-28. Our fetcher received an HTTP 403 from americanfarriers.org on that date, so the CF and CJF requirements above are reported from the association's own indexed certification pages rather than from a page we opened directly, and are labelled as such rather than quoted verbatim. Per this fleet's standing rule that is our retrieval failing, not anything on the association's side, and a writer with working access should replace this paragraph with a direct read. Merck Veterinary Manual, "Hoof Abscesses in Horses" and "Thrush in Horses", both read 2026-08-28, for the non-weight-bearing lameness statement, the examination findings and irregular farrier care among the conditions associated with thrush. UF/IFAS Extension, "Hoof Care for Florida Horses" (VM265), read 2026-08-28, for the five to eight week schedule and wet conditions needing more frequent visits. University of Minnesota Extension's hoof care page returned HTTP 403 to our request on 2026-08-28; its six to eight week summer and six to twelve week winter guidance is reported from the indexed summary rather than a direct read.
This site is not written by a veterinarian or a farrier, and no farrier, school or association is recommended here.