Hoof Balancing & Horsemanship: Stacia Langille, Farrier

04/17/2026

Whew, it's been a while since I posted.

Yup, I'm still trimming! I only shoe for existing clients, as I no longer stock an inventory. I rarely have openings in my scheduled rotations, but welcome new clients within 30 minutes of Boscawen NH.

Please do reach out with any inquiries, and hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather.

Experienced full service farrier, utilizing both barefoot and shoeing methodologies.

12/11/2023

Well, time to make an official announcement.

TLDR: not shoeing for the foreseeable future, trimming services to continue as normal!

My work truck was rear-ended on on November 28th. Fortunately, both my daughter and I are okay. Unfortunately, my truck is not drivable, the insurance company won’t total it, and it will be a minimum of 2-4 months before it will be repaired.

This has been an infuriating loss, and given the current used vehicle market and the demands of motherhood/homeschooling/grad school, I’m not able to to financially justify replacing my work truck with something that can hold up to carrying my shoeing body over the long term.

I’ve always said that my trimming business supported my shoeing hobby, and I’ve had to make the difficult decision to sell my shoeing body and buy a lighter duty truck. I will be continuing to offer trimming services, but will not be able to offer shoeing services for the foreseeable future.

There are too many variables right now, and I do not know if I will outfit this new lighter duty truck as a shoeing rig in the future or not. I’ll be keeping all of my tools as I’m still shoeing at my barn, and when I graduate from my MA program in April, I’m going to take a minute to catch my breath and decide what makes sense! I will be continuing to offer trimming services for as many decades as possible.

(And, after almost 3 years of not being able to accept new clients… maybe I will be able to open my books again in May 2024!)

03/17/2023

"Perfect is too short." - James Welz
If you nitpick a hoof to death, or keep trying to make it look "picture perfect", you will most likely end up over-trimming. Be satisfied with leaving small irregularities. This is the real world, not fantasy hoof world. Even healthy wild horse hooves are asymmetrical. Your goal is to normalize the shape of that hoof as much as possible, each trim. This doesn't usually mean making radical changes; small consistent work towards that round, short-toed form will reap positive results in time.
Happy Hooves! - Yvonne Welz

01/05/2023

2022 1st cut, pickup only at our farm in Boscawen NH. 40-44lb bales, $10/bale. Tests safe per ECIR standards, so there is no need to soak for your metabolic horse!

I can also resell our custom blended minerals, $1.50/cup, one cup balances 20 lbs of hay. Includes flax, salt, lysine, selenium, magnesium, and minerals to test result specs (copper, zinc, manganese, and phosphorus for this batch). Just top dress on a carrier and add Vitamin E, and your diet balancing is complete!

08/09/2022

Marketing of horse feed can be incredibly misleading, or even downright dangerous, especially when it comes to laminitic or metabolic horses.

If you have a horse with hoof issues - this one's for you!

I have learned to never believe any marketing tag lines on a feed until I read the labels. I see so many brands that boast "Low NSC!!" or "Low starch levels!," when the actual label breakdown shows the feed would cause a sensitive horse to relapse into laminitis. It can be infuriating!

But how can a feed with what seems to be a lower NSC % cause issues, you may ask?

The two main components in feed that affect insulin levels in horses are starch and ESC (sugar). Between those two, ESC converts about 50% to glucose in the body, while starch converts 100% to glucose in the body. That makes starch a much more significant player when it comes to hoof issues and metabolic control.
Through over 2 decades of field study with the ECIR group, Dr. Kellon and other ECIR members have found that feed should be less than 4% starch and less than 10% ESC+starch combined for metabolic horses to maintain comfort and help manage proper insulin levels.

So a label could boast "10% NSC!" which certainly sounds low to the average consumer, and yet the starch alone in that could be 8%, making it unsuitable for horses struggling with hoof issues.

I can't tell you how many times I've had owners say "but it's a low starch feed!," only to read the label and see that the starch levels are just too high for their horse. This can affect hoof comfort and sensitivity, laminae connection, ability to grow healthy wall and sole depth, and make or break hoof rehab in laminitic cases.

Have you read your labels lately?

To learn more, visit ecirhorse.org