Fig. 42.—Wrongly placed Nail-holes.
Each nail-hole when properly placed—neither too coarse nor too fine—should be punched straight through the shoe and not inclined either inwards or outwards, except at the toe where the slope of the wall is followed by slightly pitching in. When a fuller is used the groove made should be wide; then the farrier has more command over the direction of his nail. If the nail-hole be pitched in, the nail must take that direction and is liable to wound the foot. If the nail-hole be pitched out, the nail is prevented from taking sufficient hold of the horn.
Fig. 43.—Nail-holes "pitched" in and out.
The position and direction of the nail-hole control the passage of a nail through a shoe and into the hoof. The man who drives a nail is usually blamed for laming a horse, but in most cases it would be more just to blame the man who made the nail-holes or fitted the shoe and so rendered safe driving difficult or impossible.
Each nail-hole should be as far as possible from the other—say, from an inch to an inch and a half apart. When the two front or toe nail-holes are put too far back the whole are crowded, or the last are pushed back too near the heels.
For small shoes four or five nail-holes are sufficient. Medium-sized shoes should have from five to seven, and the heavy shoes of big draught horses must have eight. The number of nail-holes need not always be increased in proportion to the size of the shoe, because as the weight of shoe is increased so is the size of the nail, and an extra strong nail may take the place of additional ones. The fewer nails in a foot the better, but as a properly-placed nail does no harm, and as the loss of a shoe may be very serious, it is better to have one too many than one too few.
