Overview
Our service policies
result from a review process where we compare feedback from clients
to the results we strive for in our business plan. We take
our leadership role as a premium hoof care service provider very
seriously. In order to maintain our market position, we
must constantly work to improve the quality of our service and
our ability to deliver that service reliably. Therefore
we ask for your continued feedback and suggestions. We place
a very high value on that information because clients who demand
the absolute best care available for their equines, choose to
do business with Blackburn Forge, Inc.
Contents
- What
should you expect from us?
- What
we expect from you?
- Regular
Scheduled Appointments
- Non-Scheduled
Appointments
- Changes
and Cancellations
- COMMUNICATION!!!
- Emergency
Service and Lost Shoe Replacement.
What
should you expect from us?
- Comprehensive premium
hoof care service from fully qualified, educated, skilled, professionals.
- Your horse receives
our undivided attention and our best work at every appointment.
- We will be punctual
and reliable for appointments and keep your horses on a regular
schedule.
- You will find us
available on short notice. Because we do not overbook
appointments, we will never be too busy to return a
call or stop by to replace a lost shoe.
- We take great pride
in our horsemanship skills in respect to managing factitious
horses on the ground. Your horses will receive gentle
and patient handling. We will not allow our tempers to dictate
the quality of our horsemanship.
- We will cleanup
our mess (nails, hoof trimmings, old shoes, etc.) before we
leave your stables.
- To make sure we
are all working together for the best interest of your horse,
we will cooperate and communicate with your trainer and veterinarian.
- So that we always
have what we need in the rig to shoe your horse appropriately,
we will maintain a comprehensive inventory of supplies and tools.
- Communication.
You will get honest, thoughtful, educated answers to your questions.
If we do not know the answer, we will refer you to someone
in our professional network that does know the answer.
- Through our professional
network you will receive priority referrals to lameness experts,
nutrition consultants, trainers, veterinarians and other equine
professionals. <TOP
What
we expect from you?
-
Blackburn
Forge, Inc. has established a reputation for delivering SUPERIOR
QUALITY WORKMANSHIP, SUPERIOR HORSEMANSHIP, AND PREMIUM SERVICE.
The most important thing we ask of YOU, our clients, is to MAKE
A COMITMENT to providing regular hoof care (maintenance)
as part of your equine husbandry program. In the warmer
months (April through October) we provide EHP
on a 5-week schedule because this allows us to provide optimal
hoof care (maintenance) for most horses in our service
area. In the colder months we may increase the time
between appointments to accommodate slower hoof growth due to
colder temperatures.
-
We
do our best work when you provide us with a clean, safe,
and efficient work environment. Over
the years we have been very resourceful and creative in helping
our clients "discover" ways to accommodate our work
environment needs. If
working conditions are such that the quality of our workmanship
or our ability to deliver service efficiently is compromised,
then we will do the best work we can under the conditions you
provide. We realize that not everyone can afford to build
a show barn with a paved aisle. If the work environment
you provide for us is unacceptable, we will help you figure
out a way to make changes to meet our work environment needs
that is within your budget.
- Please do not make
us wait for you to catch your horses. Have them ready in their
stalls or nearby in a small paddock at the appointed time. Not
having your horses ready will cut into the time we have allotted
to work on your horses. Therefore some of your horses may not
get farrier service because there is no time left to work on them
without pushing back the next client’s appointment time.
- No one wants to work
under a wet, dirty, or muddy horse. Horses should be reasonably
clean and dry. Remove loose dirt and mud from the hip down and
from the shoulder down. Although it is not necessary for your
horses to be show groomed, we should not have to change clothes
after working on your horses either.
- Food will distract
horses and make our job more difficult. Wait until we leaves to
feed any horses or feed all of them in time for them to finish
eating before we arrives. Do not feed treats to your horses
during farrier visits.
- Keep a bottle of bug
repellent nearby during fly season. A big fan is better at keeping
flies away than bug spray. A work area that is free of manure
will have fewer flies. Clean horses attract fewer flies than dirty
horses.
-
Occasionally
we encounter horses with behavior problems that prevent us from
working safely and efficiently. In most cases we are able
to work through the behavior issues and get the job done.
We very seldom encounter a horse that is so mentally traumatized
that we cannot achieve a trusting and respectful working relationship.
We do not turn away horses with behavior
problems as long as our clients are committed to working toward
a solution. The
only thing we ask from our clients is that you notify us in
advance if you know that your horse has a behavior problem that
may require additional time for us to do our job. We have
a track record of success in delivering quality hoof care to
horses with behavior problems that have prevented other farriers
from getting the job done. Furthermore, regardless of
how big your horse's behavior problem may be, we have professionals
in our network who CAN solve ANY equine behavior problem.
Therefore, when we cannot safely accommodate your horse's needs,
we will refer you a trainer who is an "equine behavior
specialist." <TOP
Regular
Scheduled Appointments
A Regular
Scheduled Appointment is made for each horse while we are at your
stables for the current appointment. The next Regular Scheduled
Appointment will usually be 5-weeks or less from the current appointment
date on a weekday between the hours of 9:00am and 5:00pm.
This allows us to run an efficient business with appointments
grouped according to a particular geographic area and to spread
the cost of travel over several locations. We will make
reminder calls to each client the week preceding your next appointment.
This way no one forgets when his or her next appointment
is scheduled.
If you plan to change
the number of horses or the kind of work done on a horse at the
next Regular Scheduled Appointment, please notify us when scheduling
the next appointment. Please do not substitute one horse
for another. Some horses require a few minutes, and some
require a few hours. We schedule appointments to accommodate enough
time for the horses and the work that we expect to find when arriving
at your stables. If you add or change horses without advanced
notice, there may not be enough time scheduled to get all of the
work done at the current appointment. If you want to go
longer than 5-weeks between appointments or you want your horses
scheduled for weekend or evening hours, then your appointments
will be considered Non-Scheduled Appointments
and charged according to a different fee structure. <TOP
Non-Scheduled
Appointments
If you are not on
our EHP schedule, we strongly advise
you to call at least 2 weeks in advance to arrange a your next
appointment. However, please understand that EHP
appointments take priority. Non-Scheduled Appointments are subject
to higher fees. Weekend and evening appointments are usually
treated as Non-Scheduled appointments because they take place
outside of normal business hours.
We do our best to
meet the needs of the individual horse. However, we also
attempt to organize our appointment schedule to minimize travel
expenses by grouping appointments in the same area on the same
day. Some clients try to take advantage of our scheduling
flexibility by pushing for longer times between appointments.
While this tactic may provide some cost savings, it does not
allow us to deliver service efficiently AND it certainly does
not allow us to MAINTAIN your horses feet in optimal condition.
Instead we wind up having to spend more time and do more
work to repair the damage that has occurred as a result of pushing
for longer times between appointments. Therefore, if
you want to customize your hoof care appointments to suit your
personal convenience instead of the health of your horses feet,
we will be happy to provide you with that convenience as long
as you make it worth our while to do so. <TOP
Changes
and Cancellations
"The
best-laid plans ...” Once in a while we run in to a problem
that requires us to change our schedule. Unless you have
an emergency, please notify us NO LESS than 24 hours in advance.
Then you can schedule for the next available appointment.
With advanced notice of a scheduling change, there is time
for us to contact clients who may be waiting for service.
Calling the night before or worse yet while we are on the way
leaves a hole in our schedule and interferes with our ability
to produce a regular income. Please remember that farrier
work is our full time business and our sole source of income.
We do our best to stay on schedule and call ahead when
running late. If we work together to keep things organized
and running efficiently, it helps us both to keep costs down.
When you are waiting
for us to show up for an appointment, please make sure that you
have a telephone nearby. If due to some unavoidable circumstance
we are running late or have to cancel, we will be trying to call
you from a cell phone to let you know about it. If we are
more than 15 minutes late for an appointment, you should be looking
for your telephone, because we will be trying to reach you.
<TOP
COMMUNICATION!!!
It is surprising
how often we hear horse owners complain about how their farrier
is not addressing lameness or performance problems to their
satisfaction. Yet, when we ask, "Have you
told your farrier there is a problem?" more often
than not the answer is "NO."
Because we run a
high availability service, our clients do not
have the excuse that they cannot reach their farrier.
If your horse appears to have a lameness/performance problem
or you have a complaint about our service, we would like to
know about it IMMEDIATELY! We will return your call promptly
- HONEST, we really do excellent follow up with our clients.
When we take on a new
client we ask a lot of questions. As much as possible we
would like to have a complete history on every horse we service.
We may ask to see your horse's medical records, request
x-rays, or to talk directly with your veterinarian or trainer.
Rather than having owners deliver messages to us from veterinarians
or trainers, we prefer to communicate with other equine professionals
directly in person or at least over the telephone. Often
we will ask a client or their trainer to tack-up a horse and ride
it so we can observe the horse in motion while carrying a rider.
We subscribe to the AAEP
Code of Ethics "Guidelines for VETERINARIAN / FARRIER
PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT" and we expect veterinarians to adhere
to these guidelines as well. The better we professionals
communicate and the more information we have, the better we can
serve your horses needs.
Emergency
Service and Lost Shoe Replacement
Blackburn Forge, Inc
has a farrier on call 24x7 to replace lost shoes and respond to
emergencies. Our policy is to repair or replace lost, loose,
or sprung shoes within 24 hours of notification.
If you see that your horse is missing a shoe or has a loose shoe
in the morning, do not wait until the end of the day to contact
us for service. If we are servicing your area that day, we might
be able to get to you in just a few hours. Waiting until the end
of the day means that we may not be there until the end of the
following day. The sooner you contact us the better for your horse.
Within 4-weeks of our
last appointment we will replace lost or loose shoes free
of charge under the following conditions:
- You have found the
shoe, therefore we do not have to make or fit a replacement.
- You have kept the
horse on the EHP appointment
schedule.
Please do not ride
or work your horse if it is missing a shoe or has a loose shoe.
A “sprung shoe” is a shoe that is bent away from the
hoof at one or both heels. If you notice that your horse has a
sprung shoe, this is can be a serious problem. A sprung shoe can
damage a horse’s foot including the possibility of a coffin
bone fracture. Therefore it is best to pull the shoe off immediately
and then call us to come repair and reapply the shoe. If you are
unable to pull off a sprung shoe, put the horse in a stall or
otherwise confine its movement to nothing more than walking until
we arrive to make repairs.
<TOP
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