Have you ever had a horse with Thrush?

Persephone

Persephone

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I am really interested wether it is the type of horse or the owners hoofcare which is more likely to be the reason for having Thrush?

None of my horses have ever had anything remotely near it, yet others seem to be always treating it with a succession of horses!

Mine have all been shod every 4 - 8 weeks depending on work, stabled overnight on shavings/hemp/chopped straw, hooves picked out twice a day, application of Kevin Bacon liquid stuff after each shoeing and in the winter a spray of Tea Tree Mist inside the hoof when they come in at night.

Oh and the current one gets to have a stand in the river frequently!

All my horses have had excellent feet, which have held their shoes and all on a basic diet with no specific hoof additives.

I understand a deep cleft can make it harder to keep the hoof clean and dry, horses standing in mud 24 hours when the weather is wet must be very difficult too, as no sooner have they been picked our as it is packed full again with damp mud.

Just interested really in anyone's opinions, and why one horse out of two apparently kept the same might get it while the other doesn't!

Hope that makes sense :)
 
Nope. And I've had all sorts of shoeing/stabling combos. my current two are unshod out all the time in summer and in at night in winter (nits is on box rest atm and has been for 6 weeks, no thrush now either)

I hardly ever pick out feet. The only time they're done is before road work. (lazy I know) The only constant with my horses is that they've all been TB or TB type (one was 7/8ths, BH is 1/2 WB, one was Selle Francais) Maybe that is why the don't get it. It certainly isn't because I do anything to prevent it.

They eat very ordinary diets and my mucking out can be a bit lax at times too. Someone should call the RSPCA I reckon!
 
maybe it depends on sensitivity? i.e native breeds are meant to be standing in rubbish conditions all the time and have more resistance whereas lighter breeds aren't ? I could be totally wrong it may just depend on the individual..

we thought my welsh had it once but farrier said no just very smelly feet! We did however use Kevin Bacon thrush stuff for it and that can be used as a preventative measure apparently :rolleyes:
 
It seems strange how some can be totally pampered yet still get it! Perhaps there is too much intervention some times?

I don't know, just strikes me as odd!
 
No I havent, saying that my horses always had feet picked out, shod every 7 weeks. Nice fresh beds I didnt deep litter mine and they was generally very clean horses.

Although not saying thats purely the reasoning behind thrush, a friends horse had thrush he was filthy in the stable and used to stand in his muck and he had thrush in his back feet. Friend used to pick feet out all the time and got shod regular.

Horses with low heels are quite prone to it aswell as far I was aware.
 
I have had my horse for 5 years, and he has had thrush once in that time - when he was on box rest with a broken leg. I had experimented with semi 'deep litter' for his bedding and after 2 weeks he started to get smelly feet. So I put him back on shavings / flax which I mucked out fully twice a day and kept as clean and dry as possible and it cleared up very quickly.
None of my other horses have ever had it.

I pick their feet out when i bring them in at night / before I ride, but that's all I really do. Perhaps less is more?
 
Pale Rider said:
Most horses have thrush, its only recognise it when it smells, which is very advanced
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If you mean most horses have a bacterial and fungal fauna in their feet then yes, of course they do. In the same way you do on your skin. However, I wouldn't call that thrush. Thrush is when something is growing in enough abundance to cause pain and discharge (plus the smell).

I don't think most horses have thrush. That implies most horses have sore frogs and are lame and possibly even have distal limb swelling.
 
Nope never had a horse with thrush although I haven't been around horses as long as a lot of people.

All stables are deep littered and even in soggy fields have never had thrush whether a native pony or a TB.
 
My old hunters used to get thrush a lot. My bosses taught me a method which I'm not sure I 100% agree with, but it does work a treat:

Throughly pick out the horses foot then scrub clean with hot (as hot as you cam take it without scalding yourself) water. Without putting the foot down get some thick household bleach and squirt it in to the bulb of heel & frog and wait for it to run into the rest of the hoof. You can physically see it working as it fizzes on the affected bits. It didn't seem to bother the horses, but it looks a bit strange. Anyway, if you do that once a day it will clear up in a few days time depending on the severity.
 
CatStew said:
My old hunters used to get thrush a lot. My bosses taught me a method which I'm not sure I 100% agree with, but it does work a treat:

Throughly pick out the horses foot then scrub clean with hot (as hot as you cam take it without scalding yourself) water. Without putting the foot down get some thick household bleach and squirt it in to the bulb of heel & frog and wait for it to run into the rest of the hoof. You can physically see it working as it fizzes on the affected bits. It didn't seem to bother the horses, but it looks a bit strange. Anyway, if you do that once a day it will clear up in a few days time depending on the severity.
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I have seen that done many a time, but with bottles of Peroxide from the chemist!
 
jesstickle said:
footiness can be caused by lots of things?? :confused:
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Surely if a horse has thrush badly enough to be footy you would also have the discharge, smell, sogginess that goes with it?

I agree footiness without the above could be a million things!

My horse isn't footy, therefore he doesn't have thrush?
 
Funnily enough we've had a few with very mild thrush in the last few weeks at the yard at the moment. One horse had thrush and ended up with dead bits of frog and then flies laid eggs in that so two days of fly larvae hatching out. Sorted quickly though. Other geldings in the same field have currently got quite peeling frogs or soft ones and I would say mine has had a very mild case of thrush but keeping his feet cleaned out regularly and the white crumbly stuff that appears removed. I know that the sloughing off of frogs is natural as it's tissue renewing and a natural process but we've been commenting how it seems to have gone on for longer than before. Just wondering if it's the odd weather so far this spring/summer going from very hard to very wet and back again. One horse has had a continual splitting and then re-sealing heel which may be due to the weather but that's starting to cause her some problems now.
 
Pale Rider said:
Most horses have thrush, its only recognise it when it smells, which is very advanced
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Am inclined to agree,a lot do. The problem is that so often "treatments "do not get to the deep seated pockets of infection and merely clean up the more accessible areas. In this respect ,peroxide and purple spray are about as much use as a chocolate teaspoon.The result is that horses seem prone to recurrent attacks of thrush when it is really that the original cause was never cleared up.I would also agree that a lot of footieness problems are due to thrush.
 
Mine has a chronic case :( I've managed to get rid of it (touch wood, fingers crossed etc etc etc) in 3 out of 4 feet, but the off hind is defying every cure on the market. He is unshod (on farrier's advice) and out during the day in a non-muddy paddock, in at night on clean, dry shavings and rubber matting. Feet are picked out minimum of twice a day, four times if he's worked.

When it got really bad last year and I had to have the vet out (generally it is chronic rather than acute and causes no lameness, it just smells) he was surprised how clean and dry my horse's bed was. We have come to the conclusion that it is just him and the way his feet respond to certain bacteria on the ground :confused:

Vet's recommendation is to clean with iodine diluted to the strength of weak tea twice a day, farrier recommends hydrogen peroxide. Have used both of these at different times to no avail. Have also tried cleaning daily with hibiscrub, the Kevin Bacon products (incidentally, I think these are great for maintaining healthy feet and use the hoof dressing daily, it's just the hoof solution product won't even touch my boy's case of thrush), athletes foot spray, the red horse products, cleantrax soaks, eucalyptus oil, cider vinegar and every other brand of anti-thrush treatment there is. I used to feed activated charcoal to see if that would help by soaking up any toxins in the gut, didn't work. He's now on a pro and prebiotic, so will see if that does any good. If anyone's got any other suggestions for me I'd be grateful, as I'm just about at the end of my tether!
 
Yes, a warmblood with very boxy feet. He only had it once and we managed to clear it up pretty quickly but I do think the conformation of his feet had something to do with it as none of the others have ever had the same problem, in the same field and with the same care routine.
 
Edie82 said:
Mine has a chronic case :( I've managed to get rid of it (touch wood, fingers crossed etc etc etc) in 3 out of 4 feet, but the off hind is defying every cure on the market. He is unshod (on farrier's advice) and out during the day in a non-muddy paddock, in at night on clean, dry shavings and rubber matting. Feet are picked out minimum of twice a day, four times if he's worked.

When it got really bad last year and I had to have the vet out (generally it is chronic rather than acute and causes no lameness, it just smells) he was surprised how clean and dry my horse's bed was. We have come to the conclusion that it is just him and the way his feet respond to certain bacteria on the ground :confused:

Vet's recommendation is to clean with iodine diluted to the strength of weak tea twice a day, farrier recommends hydrogen peroxide. Have used both of these at different times to no avail. Have also tried cleaning daily with hibiscrub, the Kevin Bacon products (incidentally, I think these are great for maintaining healthy feet and use the hoof dressing daily, it's just the hoof solution product won't even touch my boy's case of thrush), athletes foot spray, the red horse products, cleantrax soaks, eucalyptus oil, cider vinegar and every other brand of anti-thrush treatment there is. I used to feed activated charcoal to see if that would help by soaking up any toxins in the gut, didn't work. He's now on a pro and prebiotic, so will see if that does any good. If anyone's got any other suggestions for me I'd be grateful, as I'm just about at the end of my tether!
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Looks like the only thing you havent tried is the traditional proved remedy of using Stockholme Tar. Soak a piece of cottonwoll in it(very messy business) and pack this into the cleft of the frog .(I use a hoofpick). Change this every day. Make up a hoof oil of ! part Stockholme tar to 4 parts Linseed oil and use as hoof oil over the whole area. Shouldnt take more than a few days to clear up.Use the hoof oil a couple of times a week as a precaution .
 
My horse had thrush when I bought her, and she has had it pretty much constantly for the last 10 years, despite me trying every combination of treatment known to man/vet/farrier!!! She has *very* deep clefts that extend right up beyond reach of a hoof pick or any other tool available!

The most successful cure I have found is iodine solution squirted with a syringe, followed (once dry) by purple/blue spray.

I must stress that her thrush is certainly not down to lack of care/attention. I have been seen to be bathing her feet daily in a sheep dip that was suggested to me in the attempts to get rid of it!! I have also tried flossing, and even a formaldehyde solution (which I wasn't keen on using I have to say!)

Unfortunately, that is just her....I imagine she will have thrush the day she dies....but, touch wood, it doesnt appear to bother her, and has never made her in the least bit lame.
 
My horse is particularly dirty and gets Thrush in his hind feet when he's stabled. I've found the cheapest and most effective is to buy some Copper Sulphate crystals and mix them with water into a spray and give them a blast after picking out. You can very the strength according to the severity of the thrush
 
Mike, my YO and farrier both advised against the Stockholm tar - on the theory that the thrush bacteria being anaerobic it would be a bad idea to seal it in. Think it's one of those love it or hate it methods. However, I was desperate so I went ahead anyway with the cotton wool method you describe a couple of months ago. I made sure the cleft was as clean/dry as poss before starting, but after 4 days of this the foot had become incredibly stinky. Do you think I did something wrong? If so, I will give it another go and see how I get on. It was the liquid stuff I used, if that makes any difference? :)
 
Maisy, seems like you're in the same boat as me... It's really infuriating, isn't it? If it's any help, it was the Cleantrax soaking method that finally allowed me to beat the thrush in 3 out of 4 feet. Mine has/had really deep clefts and sheared heels on all 4, but they have gradually all healed over leaving just this one foot.
 
MochaDun said:
Funnily enough we've had a few with very mild thrush in the last few weeks at the yard at the moment. One horse had thrush and ended up with dead bits of frog and then flies laid eggs in that so two days of fly larvae hatching out. Sorted quickly though. Other geldings in the same field have currently got quite peeling frogs or soft ones and I would say mine has had a very mild case of thrush but keeping his feet cleaned out regularly and the white crumbly stuff that appears removed. I know that the sloughing off of frogs is natural as it's tissue renewing and a natural process but we've been commenting how it seems to have gone on for longer than before. Just wondering if it's the odd weather so far this spring/summer going from very hard to very wet and back again. One horse has had a continual splitting and then re-sealing heel which may be due to the weather but that's starting to cause her some problems now.
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Same as this on the small welsh one. we have had very drynground conditions ( he lives out) and then back to damp ground about two weeks ago and it looks like thrush. Admittedly he only gets his feet picked out about three times a week, although obviously I am doing them everyday now. He has deep clefts so I am sure that this doesn't help
 
I once helped out on a yard where a reasonably large percentage (1/3?) of the horses had mild thrush.

- they were in most of the time (except for being ridden ~1hr/day and turned out in groups in indoor for relaxing and free schooling)
- all on rubber matting and a variety of beds (shavings/cardboard/paper depending on breathing)
- feet picked out (with the same hoof picks, which, in retrospect maybe didn't help) twice a day
- mucked out fully every day
- additionally skipped out at least once a day

Most were barefoot.

Most were also rescues of one kind or another... from aged shetties, through cobs to ex-racers.

I was there over a winter (a bad one, snow and ice for most of it.) I sincerely hope they got out more (there were some paddocks) and their feet cleared up in summer.
 
Edie82 said:
Mike, my YO and farrier both advised against the Stockholm tar - on the theory that the thrush bacteria being anaerobic it would be a bad idea to seal it in. Think it's one of those love it or hate it methods. However, I was desperate so I went ahead anyway with the cotton wool method you describe a couple of months ago. I made sure the cleft was as clean/dry as poss before starting, but after 4 days of this the foot had become incredibly stinky. Do you think I did something wrong? If so, I will give it another go and see how I get on. It was the liquid stuff I used, if that makes any difference? :)
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You want the gooey stuff that comes in a tin . I guess you must have done somthing wrong because I have never known it to fali. Incidentaly I do understand the reasoning of your farrier and YO but the stuff has some serious anti bacterial properties and seems to work ,not just at the point of contact but quite deeply. Incidentaly it has been used very effectively on human ear infections and I have seen it work where antibiotics have failed completely. A version of it was also used by yugoslav partisans to treat gunshot wounds (with surprising success).
 
Hi

Yes in 13 years my old boy had it only once when I first got him. He has always lived out 24/7 and yes his field can get wet?? I didnt realise, it was my farrier and I got some hydrogen peroxide and syringed it on for a few days which cleared it up.

I can only relate to humans but if humans have antibiotics it can stress the immune system and they can become more suseptible to ie thrush etc also diabetics too etc so If applied to horses which I am sure must be similar that it may not be just down to good hoofcare if there immune system is compromised in anyway..illness etc

So I suppose its worth checking as to if there is something underlying if good hoofcare is being adhered to and it keeps reappearing. Also thrush can be passed on via handtowels etc so I wouldnt share any grooming kit!

well this is my experience and theory!
 
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