Didn't realise that your industry was short handed, but I guess it is pretty well wide spread everywhere. Too many lazy bar*tards not wanting to work.
I get far more new enquiry than I can reasonably answer. People *desperate for something more than unqualified cowboy... sometimes, desperate for somebody who will just answer their enquiry whether qualified or not.
Of the problem is that people with one animal do not realize what it costs to run this business and will not pay a reasonable recompense.
Here is a thought experiment:
1/ What would some other tradesman charge to drive to a job, set up equipment to spend about an hour doing the actual job, and pack up, about an hour and 20 minutes, depending?
2/ some owners do not want or require their horses to be shod, above scenario but the job might only take 15 minutes, pudding driving to, setting up etc. (Not forgetting all the BS involved in setting up the appointment)
3/ Let's say another account has anywhere from 4 to 8 hours of work at one stop. ie several horses.
The expectation of those owners in 1/ and /2 is that the charge per horse will be the same job as the owner in /3.
Going back to the problem of apprenticeships, At those one horse jobs, somebody is going to be standing around doing sfa trying to chat up the pretty girl holding the horse and not being productive, radically adding to the cost of business for that particular job.
It was different in the old days people brought their horses to the farrier in their Village; today we are expected to drive to them which adds to the cost of business, running vehicles etc.
In my case I do a lot of veterinary collaborations which require a custom solution forged or fabricated to suit the pathology concerned. An apprentice will be standing around perhaps learning something, but will not be adding to the process at all... And The marketplace will just not tolerate what I would need to charge in that situation.
As far as lazy b@st@rds go, this game is pretty dangerous and bloody hard yakka and there is the pull of the mining industry where they can sit in an air conditioned halpack and pull in six figures. It takes many years to develop the skills to get to the level of income that I am at and none of the young buggers want to go that path anyway.
As a final part to this rant, perhaps in no other industry is dunning-kruger syndrome more prevalent, and in no other industry are 90% clients completely unable to discern about these things.
This is the reason tradesmen just pulling up the ladder and refusing to put back in to training apprentices, and the way our business and tax structure is set up in this country it is only going to get worse.