What have you found that treats this well? I have been using thrush buster and durasole (this helped another horse years ago), but they don’t seem to be working well for this guy. My vet suggested I try a cow mastitis treatment called Tomorrow that I am starting now, but I thought I would also ask here for other ideas.
Tomorrow works wonderfully. White lightening (following package directions) also works wonders!
I have a cushings horse that has chronic thrush and rotating between these two (no schedule, just as needed) has worked well for us!
Koppertox was the only thing that busted it up for me. https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30e07334-7b6a-11d5-a192-00b0d0204ae5&sfb=1&itemguid=30e08b1f-7b6a-11d5-a192-00b0d0204ae5&utm_content=12084&ccd=IFH003&CAWELAID=120295250000090148&CATARGETID=120295250000183361&cadevice=c&gclid=CjwKCAiAwZTuBRAYEiwAcr67OQAwUxlj60RIj6K6DWPYEGGJ6gLbvk3XrhkgrLxTO9uIGpjrLhROmhoCFewQAvD_BwE
I always used gloves and angled his hoof so it ran towards the toe and dripped down that way. It smells terrible to me but it busted very persistent thrush during a rain spell in a couple of days. Good luck!
You’ll definitely have to treat this aggressively directly at the lesion, but if this is a horse that has frequent hoof ailments or scratches or various skin funks, a look at the diet and minerals is worthwhile because your horse’s immune system is telling you something is missing.
After trying numerous “thrush” products, I tried Agrilabs Hoof Rot. It’s a spray containing benzalkonium chloride, and it helped the most. It’s a spray, and gets into all the nooks, crannies and cracks. Can be applied daily. Most equine fungus sprays have benzalkonium chloride as the active ingredient–does not have to be the above product…same active ingredient in Bactine for humans.
My mares hoof was horrrrrible!!! She had almost no frog after winter mud, The only thing that worked was this:
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I scrubbed her foot out completely with antibacterial soap, I think I used dial with a touch of bleach. Like with a scrub brush and jetring the water so allll dirt was gone.
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I stuffed cotton pads like makeup remover pad, in her sulcus, as many as it took to fill it up.
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I soaked the pads in thrush buster and left them in for a day or 2, keeping the rest of the hoof cleaned of dirt, if its muddy, repeat step one for both days. I kept her in those days.
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On the third day I took the pads out, again scrubbed her hooves spotless, and then filled them with pete rameys concoction of neosporin, atheletes foot cream, it HAS TO BE 1% CLOTRIMAZOLE, monistat yeast infection cream, and then put a cotton pad or two depending on how deep the thrush is, in all that stuff to hold it in place and then slathered on desitin diaper rash cream to help keep dirt and moisture out.
I also hand walked her daily to force compression on the frog to stimulate new growth. It took about two weeks of constant scrubbing out with dial and cleaning out that crevice and repacking with the goo and pads, but I’ll be darned it started growing back and within a month she had twice the sized frog she had before and the thrush was gone!!! The hoof has to get cleaned and packed daily or every other day. After that her feet were cleaned daily and sprayed with a half and half of acv and water to keep the thrush away.
You could mix up equal parts of the goo ingredients in a tupperware container and get an old cleaned out wormer tube, or the tomorrow tube if it doesnt work, and use a butter knife or plastic knife to get all the “goo” into the tube for easy squirting.
Remember thrush buster doesnt just kill the bad bacterial, but the good as well from what I have read. Using the anti fungal athletes foot, anti yeast monistat, and antibacterial neosporin covers allll your bases and allows the frog to recover and grow back without killing off the good stuff. I only used thrush buster the first day or two to just try to start with as cleaned out an area as I could if that makes sense and then prevent any further uckies from growing with the goo while the frog grew out.
Making sure the horse gets plenty of good repetetive movement, ie: handwalking or riding. Just grazing doesnt give enough routined compression to stimulate growth like riding or brisk handwalking does. My mare couldnt be rode so she was walked 20 min a day besides turnout.
I swear by this treatment it isn’t the quickest but damn does it work, its non evasive and not expensive and the frog grows quick!!!
Pete Ramey’s new suggestion is just extra strength Desitin and copper sulfate powder and applying with a curved tip syringe as far into the center sulcus as you can get it.
I’ve had good luck with the Tomorrow, especially in the winter when something like Desitin gets super think and hard to push through a syringe.
I use Tomorrow. Far better than anything else I’ve tried.
Whatever you use, I have found that packing the sulcus with cotton wool or the pads that Carman Liz suggested is really helpful. When using it on unshod hooves it has always helped with soreness, because it limits how much the tender frog can move around. It also means that you may only have to flush the sulcus out for the first treatment, as it keeps it so much cleaner.
I’ve used Go Dry which is also a mastitis treatment for cows. Works a treat
I just got a horse on lease four weeks ago who had some terrible central sulcus thrush. My trimmer recommended this stuff, and he’s looking great!
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PP8BZGT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Thanks everyone for your input so far!
I used Durasole multiple times a day for several days in a row (almost a week) and packed it with cotton at least once a day that was soaked in Durasole. Once the frog began to look more healthy (drier) I reduced my treatment regimen to once a day with Durasole and continued to pack it with soaked cotton until the frog was grown out enough to not hold the cotton wad.
I tried the cow mastitis cream, Koppertox, thrush buster…all to no avail.
I’m sure, to a certain extent, it depends on the individual infection.
Best of luck.
Tea Tree Oil in a syringe with a plastic teat cannula needle has been the best for me.
I’ve also heard good things about Tomorrow. But, just a note, I’d avoid using it as a first-line treatment (obviously not the case for OP) because it’s an antibiotic.
Try other means first, unless a vet advises otherwise.
My trimmer recommended Fungidye. I have, in the past, packed the hoof with sugardyne and wrapped it for a few days. Right now I’m using Thrush Buster, which seems to be working, and I have a bottle of the Fungidye to use if I need it when the TB is gone, but it seems to be working.
I have used 1/2 and 1/2 water, and bleach using a hook tipped syringe, and gloves.
When my horse got really bad thrush in his central sulcus last month my vet had me do a strip of gauze in there and then soak it with LA-200. Since then I’ve been treating with No Thrush and Desitin. The No Thrush and Desitin combo has been amazing. Fastest I’ve ever seen healthy tissue growing back in! I also just use Desitin by itself as a preventative every couple days.
I second (or third) Tomorrow. It is affordable, easy, readily available, and works wonders.
Tomorrow Dry Cow, packed in with cotton is a user-friendly one.
For the White Lightning - don’t bother with package directions, it has you using most of the bottle and it’s not necessary. The active that’s being made by mixing is chlorine dioxide- A GAS. if you soak in an open bucket or pre-mix and spray, you’re not getting the full benefit.
Instead: Get IV bags from your vet (very sturdy!) and some duct tape, mix vinegar (30 ml) and WL solution (30 ml), seal the bags with duct tape around the fetlock, and set your horse up with a hay net and let it “fumigate” the feet for 30 min. one or two treatments does a WORLD of good.