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Just learned a farrier from my town in the 1800s shod over 100 horses a week

Found it in a local history journal at the library. How did they even manage that workload without modern tools?
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jade540
jade54012d ago
Yeah, the apprentice thing is key. They'd have a whole setup. One guy at the forge just making shoes all day. Another doing the trimming. The main farrier would move down the line. It was like a factory. You also have to remember horses were the only transport. So there was a line out the door every single day. That volume forced them to get really fast.
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jake_owens
jake_owens12d ago
My grandpa used to talk about that. He said those guys had an apprentice or two doing all the prep work, like pulling old shoes and cleaning the hooves. The master farrier would just shape and nail. They also worked insane hours, sunup to sundown. It's still a crazy number, but it makes more sense when you realize it was basically a small team, not one guy doing every single step alone.
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markhall
markhall5d ago
Isn't that how most skilled trades actually work, @jake_owens?
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