Timing, and why the first visit is deliberately small
Foals benefit from a farrier's eyes early — often a first look and tidy within the first couple of months, and certainly by the age your question describes — because a young leg's growth plates are still open and small imbalances are far easier to nudge gradually than to correct later. But the point of the first visit is double, and the second half matters as much as the trimming: this is the foal's introduction to being handled by a stranger in the farrier's crouched, leg-holding posture, a posture it will meet every few weeks for its whole life. A sensible first visit is therefore short on purpose: held where the foal lives, on a level, non-slip surface, with the dam standing in sight and the foal's usual handler holding the lead rope — no stocks, no new yard, no audience.
The homework that makes the visit easy
Farriers can tell within a minute whether a foal has been prepared. In the weeks before the appointment, pick up all four feet daily: run your hand down the leg, lift, hold for a few seconds while the foal balances, and put the foot down before it starts to snatch. Tap the hoof wall with the back of a hoof pick so the percussion of tools is familiar, and practise standing quietly on three legs. Practise on the yard surface where the visit will happen. A foal that thinks foot handling is a daily bore will treat the farrier as a variation on a theme; a foal meeting it all for the first time will treat the farrier as an emergency.
The visit itself, minute by minute
Expect the farrier to begin by watching the foal stand and perhaps take a few steps, because how the feet land steers everything else. Then comes introduction on the foal's terms: a hand on the shoulder, down the leg, and a brief lift of a front foot — the easiest pair — held for seconds, rasped lightly if it stays down happily, and put down again with the foal praised. The work at this age is tidying rather than reshaping: taking back a toe that is running long, smoothing flares and ragged edges, and keeping the pair balanced with each other. Hind feet come once the fronts have gone well, and a good farrier reads the foal's patience like a fuel gauge, finishing or pausing before it empties. The whole appointment commonly takes less time than an adult's full trim — brevity here is a feature, not a short-changing.
What is deliberately left undone
No shoes, obviously — but also no heroic correction. A foal whose legs are not perfectly straight is managed across a series of small trims as it grows, usually with the vet aware of the plan, because aggressive reshaping of a growing limb creates new problems. Equally, nobody wrestles: if the foal fades, objects or the dam becomes unsettled, the sensible farrier tidies what is done, leaves the rest, and books a shorter-gap return visit rather than finishing through a fight the foal will remember at future appointments.
Aftercare, and keeping the thread between visits
Walk the foal a few steps afterwards and watch it move as freely as it did before; a foal that is sore after a light tidy is worth a phone call. Then write the visit down while it is fresh: the date, what was trimmed, anything the farrier flagged — a heel growing unevenly, a toe to watch — and the interval they suggest before the next visit, since young feet change fast and the gap for a foal is shorter than for an adult horse. Those notes turn appointments into a growth record and tell the farrier next time what changed.
That running record belongs with the foal's other paperwork — and a KinsLe Pet Passport keeps trim dates, farrier notes and vet visits together in one packet, so its foot history is complete wherever it is seen.