Bleeding frog?

[Scribbler]

Horse in question is at another barn and I haven’t seen his feet. A friend who is involved with the horse but not the owner was asking my advice.

Apparently horse has chronic untreated thrush and ratty frogs. Owner was cleaning feet, pulled off a loose shred, and got blood. Owner poulticed for abscess for a couple of days, put horse back into work, and he came up three legged lame.

Owner is treating as abscess, my friend thinks it’s thrush. I’ve never heard of a horse bleeding from the frog except when our local self taught barefoot trimmer tried to excise all the “thrush” from a barn acquaintances horse (horse probably didn’t have thrush but I digress). My first question was whether the horse had a sunken coffin bone that was putting all the sensitive tissues too close to the ground. But my friend thought he had no signs of laminitis or founder past or present.

I’ve treated several abscesses, and it’s clear they don’t bleed. But I’ve never had actual thrush in a horse under my care. And IMHO a lot of conscientious horse owners get all upset about what I call “imaginary thrush” meaning any weather related change to the sole of the foot :).

So this situation is unusual. Could thrush indeed eat away so much frog, that the sensitive tissues are exposed?

If so I’d want to address the chronic thrush with a topical, preferably one that doesn’t sting, and clean up the environmental contributing factors, and get the horse on a ration balancer or vitamin mineral supplement for hoof growth.

Anyhow I am not involved in care, so this is more theoretical as I don’t come across many cases of real thrush, even second hand. And it’s the real cases that help me be confident in diagnosing “imaginary thrush” as a phenomena.

[teamfire]

If it’s my horse (because it sounds a lot like my horse told via 2 people as your friend is my leaser) its not quite the case.

Every start of rainy season he starts to shed his frogs and he has a gravel paddock that gets squishy. He also pees right in front of his paddock entrance to he passes this urine area no matter what I do to it. So every fall start he gets a little thrush.

he does not have chronic untreated thrush and ratty frogs!! I’ll take a picture today you’d be very surprised, he has excellent feet and frogs.

But my guess is that the thrush ate through the crevice (the infection is in the crevice beside the frog and the bars, not the main frog itself) and as it dried up for a bit, it closed up trapping bacteria inside.

I’m treating it as an abscess because what else can I do? He had relapse, likely due to my fault for not having the protocol long enough. So again he no longer lame after 1 day but will extend soaking and politicing for longer this time.

edit: Of course I’ll be treating the thrush once it closes up. I meant for now. Although he is no longer lame with no heat.

[PNWjumper]

I had a “bleeding frog” incident here. TLDR: it was a punctured frog.

Horse took a nail to the frog. This is something that we were unaware of when this took place, but figured out over the next couple of days (and eventually found the nail track that went from the tip of the frog toward the back of the foot).

Mare came in non-weight-bearing on her LF out of the blue. We initially thought abscess and she was due for shoes anyway. We were unable to do the RF that day (because she couldn’t stand on the LF), but my farrier wanted to pull the shoe and take a closer look at the LF to see if we could help her out. He cleaned up the foot and went to trim the frog and…holy bloody mess, batman! Blood poured out of that frog, and in the process of (carefully) trimming the frog he trimmed into sensitive tissue (which should not have been where it was).

The best we can figure is that the swelling from the punctured frog (which presumably is where the blood came from) pushed the underlying tissue way “lower” (or closer to the surface?) in the foot/frog than it should have been. But we were reminded of how bizarre it was when he trimmed the [shedding] frogs back this time (6 months later) and they trimmed back to the plane of the foot.

Pictures here:

1. lots of blood: http://s1280.photobucket.com/user/PNWjumper/media/IMG_1078.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1
2. the spot where he nipped into sensitive tissue after getting cleaned up (the puncture wound itself is down at the very tip of the frog - we didn’t find it until a day or two later): http://s1280.photobucket.com/user/PNWjumper/media/IMG_1098.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0 - quick note that most of the blood came from the general area where the nail hole was (toward the tip of the frog),

My point in telling that story is that if I had a suddenly lame horse and a lot of blood from the frog, I would assume a puncture wound rather than thrush or abscess (both of which we initially suspected in this case, along with the possibility of canker). Had I not found the board on my property that she likely stepped on (she had kicked down a board in her field with nails attached and sticking up in a place she frequently grazes), I’m not sure we would have found the nail track.

[Calvincrowe]

Yes this is very much a thrush thing. I had a retired horse who had chronic sulcus thrush. Long story short, vet eventually had to cut out parts of his frog and sole to get to the worst of the infection. We treated it with the cow mastitis stuff (Tomorrow? Today?) and I had to pack the sulcus daily with the cream and cotton after flushing with water and iodine, then tape up like an abcess. Every day. For 2 months. If that hadn’t worked, we were prepared to go to a hospital plate and total stall rest.

Get a vet out.

[4LeafCloverFarm]

I agree that an abscess isn’t typically bloody. And though I’ve dealt with lots on abscesses in my day, one at/on the frog is not one I’ve encountered (though I’m not saying its not in the realm of possibilities). But, thrush can be painful and can make them lame. I have a horse that has what I call flat feet in front and seems more prone to thrush than any other horse I’ve ever had (poor guy really got shorted in the hoof department). And he can come up lame when he gets it (but he gets ouchy at nearly anything). Thrush smells bad though (to me its a really nasty pungent smell that I really can’t describe) - so if there is no bad smell and no ash/black kind of spongy areas in the frog, then it isn’t thrush. And in my experience, thrush doesn’t bleed - but as with all things, I suppose it is possible (perhaps in really bad/advanced cases?).

When you say “pulled a loose shred” do you mean a loose piece of the frog? Because that may very well cause blood if the end that was still connected was torn out. And I’d imagine that would cause some inflammation and possibly get infected, and that could cause lameness. It’s possible that the poultice and bandaging simply delayed the effects of coming up lame.

However, I’ll add (for me) that any loose flap or piece of frog would be carefully trimmed with scissors and I would never have pulled/yanked it off! And if it were my horse, I’d try a different farrier because modern thinking is that thrush invades unhealthy tissue, and constant/chronic thrush means that the frogs are in bad shape and a different farrier might have ideas on how to rectify that (like pads under shoes until the frog can grow out nice and healthy).

[4LeafCloverFarm]

@teamfire thanks for the clarification. Based on your description, I would have responded quite differently! And now I feel badly.

[teamfire]

It’s quite all right. It’s not the first time that OP has posted about my horse with guesses based on half informed comments from my leaser.

[Scribbler]

@teamfire

It’s quite all right. It’s not the first time that OP has posted about my horse with guesses based on half informed comments from my leaser.

Oh dear lord. If the details don’t fit your case then it’s not about you. It’s fall, it’s getting into thrush season, I know lots of people at different barns in the area. It was a general interest question on a putatively anonymous chat board with details blurred.

[teamfire]

Scribbler, we are in the same barns. I know you and your horse… Your friend leases my horse. You’ve posted before about another issue involving my horse and my leaser (blistered finger).

and now of this hoof issue which has pretty much identical issues (some blood, friend who does not own horse, was lame and then relapsed, treating as abscess) to the point is pointless to argue otherwise.

part of posting on an online forum is that sometimes you WILL be identified. I have been lurking on this forum far longer than you have been a member! I remember the post you put regarding the auto feeders we all use in the barn.

so instead of trying to deny, just accept you have been identified and perhaps next time be a little more courteous about what you post when it is not your horse and dont know the details 1st hand.

[Scribbler]

Oh dear lord. This was a general interest query, as we go into thrush season, based on several different incidents with details blurred and no one identified. Thank you to those who responded, and apologies for inadvertently stirring up drama.