worn hooves!! Advice needed please!!

OberBaubles said:
For those who are finding thrush persistent - diet and movement are key.

Movement to stimulate the horse to produce more tissue faster than the thrush can eat it.

And diet to ensure adequate zinc to produce good quality tissue and boost the immune system.

The zinc is low in UK's forage (and the iron is high....which blocks the zinc) so it's no wonder we have such problems with thrush/mud fever every time there's a spot of rain ;)

We also like to feed lots of molasses in the UK - this doesn't help either :o

My horses stand in a bog most of the year. The Tank is always fine. The old lad isn't completely immune to mud fever or thrush - but he's a helluva lot better since I got the mineral balance right......:)
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What levels of Zinc?

My mare is currently on Pro Hoof (does this have enough?) in a bit of speedi beet, her shoes are off for the winter (in my attempt to battle the thrush), which seemed to be going well, till the frost disappeared and my grazing turned to a bog. :(

She is in over night with hay and on flax bedding, to dry her feet. I use either NT dry thrush powder, redhorse field paste or sole paint.
 
piebaldsparkle said:
What levels of Zinc?

My mare is currently on Pro Hoof (does this have enough?) in a bit of speedi beet, her shoes are off for the winter (in my attempt to battle the thrush), which seemed to be going well, till the frost disappeared and my grazing turned to a bog. :(

She is in over night with hay and on flax bedding, to dry her feet. I use either NT dry thrush powder, redhorse field paste or sole paint.
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like you are doing all you can.

I often baffle as to how horses manage to survive in almost any conditions, all over the world and yet get felled by a spot of wet weather in the UK :confused:.

The Camerague live in semi aquatic conditions and yet they thrive....

I think the difference is that most feral horses travel large distances and eat sparsely and this seems to be the key.

Our horses tend to stand around, stuffing their faces with the lush, green grass and bucket feeds.....then go for a quick trot around the school a couple of times a week...and puff and pant like they're hard done to :D

I've never seen a hard working barefoot horse with thrush (think endurance fit) but that may just be my good luck.
 
I appreciate why you'd want a flax bed when it comes to thrush but when I looked into this years ago I read something that said more horses struggle with the wet weather now than years ago and some suggested bedding was an issue.
One theory was that it wasn't so much the wet weather contributing to feet cracking but every day going from saturated (stood in wet field) to very dry (highly absorbent bedding which actually draws moisture out of the foot)
That weakens the structures of the feet and years ago nearly every horse had a straw bed that can be kept dry but isn't overly absorbent.
Just a thought
J
 
I've been using the Red Field Paste too. Shy came to me with thrush really bad, and just when I think it's sorted, BANG !!

I found some Thrushbuster on amazon - 56 ml for £12 plus p an p :eek:

Anyway, got some Cavallo boots secondhand from ebay last night, which I hope will support his hooves better during roadwork - which is pretty much all we can do atm, because of the water logging.
 
Re thrush, some believe copper deficiency also plays a part. If you have persistent, severe problems it may well be worth having grass and forage tested if possible to see what's what with minerals and can then supplement bespoke.

Also, re cracks. Ime cracks often come from poor lamina connection one common cause is (yes you guessed it!) sugar and starch levels in grass and hay.
My mare with a history of severe cracks and pancake hooves responded really well to being yarded and fed soaked hay. The cracks grew out by themselves with very minimal trim intervention.
Once the white line is compromised bugs can get in and cause havoc. Also, a compromised white line allows the wall to flare so hooves can go splat or run forward. Of course this isn't the only cause but I think it's a major one.
 
piebaldsparkle said:
What levels of Zinc?

My mare is currently on Pro Hoof (does this have enough?) in a bit of speedi beet, her shoes are off for the winter (in my attempt to battle the thrush), which seemed to be going well, till the frost disappeared and my grazing turned to a bog. :(

She is in over night with hay and on flax bedding, to dry her feet. I use either NT dry thrush powder, redhorse field paste or sole paint.
Click to expand...

Might be worth getting your forage tested or switching to another one of the mineral supplements. I too had persistent thrush whilst on pro hoof, right diet, movement etc. It didnt go until I had forage tested and changed to equimins meta balance because it suited my forage better, and voila not a sniff of thrush since!
 
milo'n'molly said:
I appreciate why you'd want a flax bed when it comes to thrush but when I looked into this years ago I read something that said more horses struggle with the wet weather now than years ago and some suggested bedding was an issue.
One theory was that it wasn't so much the wet weather contributing to feet cracking but every day going from saturated (stood in wet field) to very dry (highly absorbent bedding which actually draws moisture out of the foot)
That weakens the structures of the feet and years ago nearly every horse had a straw bed that can be kept dry but isn't overly absorbent.
Just a thought
J
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Another thought struck me whilst reading this - it's not the bedding that has changed but more likely the methods of mucking out and the use of rubber matting. Semi-deep littering and small beds on rubber matting are much more common now?

I don't know whether this has contributed but I do find that deep deep beds (on all types of bedding, straw, shavings, flax) mucked out daily with the floor being allowed to dry certainly keeps thrush at bay. Yes, it's hard, time-consuming work - but so is scrubbing hooves and treating for thrush.
 
well we rode in the school this morning (waiting for boots), and blimey, you'd never have known he's been struggling, little b***** ! Lots of mock spooks and stuff. ;)
 
Sawdust beds are very bad for the feet in my experiance one yard I worked on had the horses on very deep deep littered sawdust the place was foot Armageddon thrush , and pus in the foot on a constant basis .
I use bed max it's excellent for the feet , beds mucked out daily ( we treat it like straw ) all bedding is dry and pale coloured all the time costs a fortune but they have good feet I never get thrush or pus in the foot .
Bed max gives the advantages of straw on the feet without the issues for the wind.
 
Goldenstar said:
Sawdust beds are very bad for the feet in my experiance one yard I worked on had the horses on very deep deep littered sawdust the place was foot Armageddon thrush , and pus in the foot on a constant basis .
I use bed max it's excellent for the feet , beds mucked out daily ( we treat it like straw ) all bedding is dry and pale coloured all the time costs a fortune but they have good feet I never get thrush or pus in the foot .
Bed max gives the advantages of straw on the feet without the issues for the wind.
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Yes, Bad stable management is most definately a big contributing factor to thrush. Deep litter, if done properly shouldn't result in smelly, damp beds... really thin springklings on rubber mats however results in horses just standing in pools of wee and poo which have been soaked up by the very little bedding that there is. I have always maintained that a relatively deep bed (whatever the choice of bedding), mucked out daily is the best way but that said there are some people that are Pro's at deep litter - by that I mean that the bed looks as fresh as the day it was laid EVERY day... I personally don't like bedmax... its expensive and not particularly absorbant but each to their own ;)
 
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