New inventive ways to treat thrush?

[eightpondfarm]

When i bring in a mustang to train i keep him incarcerated in a run-in barn w/corral. Invariably, within a month said horse will get ‘that smell’. At this point in their life, they usually are not very hoof-treatable and it will take me a couple/three weeks to get to the hooves.

What i use on their feet (like OP, almost always the front feet) is 50% iodine 10% solution and 50% turpentine. I use a plastic catsup squeeze bottle.

I’ve felt that my environment has waaay more bacteria than the desert from which they came. When they’re in pasture it almost never happens…but on dry lot (damp lot here) it sure gets to a lot of them.

[PNWSunnyDay]

@lenapesadie

butt crack wars.

This is the information I’m here for! I’m so thrilled at this terminology because it really is a perfect illustration.

[StormyDay]

Ok, an update; I switched him to a new biotin supplement a few weeks back. I’m still fighting the ‘butt crack wars’ but, we are in the dry and cold season and his thrush always tends to die down a bit when that happens, so I just don’t know yet if the suggestions given are helping or if it’s more the weather.

The supplement has, however, made him grow more frog which is nice. He’s always had kind of sad little frogs.

[Bebe_Falcon1]

Your battle with thrush sounds both exhausting and maybe a little expensive!

Not ‘inventive’ by any means (actually quite the opposite), but I’ve soaked cotton balls in iodine and used a cheap hoof pick to shove them into all the crevices to make sure everything was coated, before disposing of the brown cotton balls. I’d get a lot of nasty gunk that would come out on the cotton balls too, which was a bonus.

That was always messy and I’d end up with orange fingers, so I preferred to alternate that method with a 50/50 dilute bleach solution that I’d spray on the underside of the hoof until it was soaked, and then hold it there for a moment to let the solution work it’s way into all the grooves.

Between that and the farrier trimming all the nasty stuff away, things were back to normal in about a week.

Good luck, and let us know if you find something that works for you!

[ABDR4]

I’ve fought my own thrush wars & IME it comes down to trim. Is the trim correct? If the trim is correct then there shouldn’t be any thrush.

Used to have mine in New England where we had 5 seasons. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter & MUD. A month or so every year where it’s just mud, mud everywhere. Horse is a Mustang so this really shouldn’t be an issue.

If this was my horse I’d personally ditch the Purina Enrich Plus since odds are its too many calories with the nutrients & just feed one of the various pelleted vitamin/mineral supplements out there. SmartPak has a bunch. Then I’d focus on getting his trim right. Study & learn what good hooves look like. Read up on how Pete Ramey, Jamie Jackson & Maureen Tierney trim.

I still had thrush issues way back when I had hay, feed & water all balanced to 4:1:4:4. Only thing that did was just make their hooves really tough & hard. Ditching the artificial balance in favor of making sure they get enough zinc & copper and really focusing on trim has been the most effective.

[StormyDay]

Well, I do him myself and while I’m not the worlds best farrier by any means, I have studied up on Pete Ramey (and have several of his books) and am part of the hoof trimming group he started on Facebook.

Over the years he’s been trimmed by different farriers, just because I also thought maybe it was me that could be causing the thrush. It never went away or improved even. One of the best farriers in the country trimmed him for about 8 months.

He actually is a medium/hard keeper so he needs the extra calories. Right now he’s getting alfalfa pellets too to keep his weight on, but in the next week or two I’ll probably have to add in some real grain. He was not built for the wild he also doesn’t grow a winter coat unless he absolutely has to, and is currently wearing two heavy weights in 30 degree weather to keep warm.

[StormyDay]

Update: I upped his zinc and copper and tried a different biotin (uckele 2% biotin) His frogs have doubled in size and the ‘butt crack’ in his frog is gone. The thrush is gone! I don’t know what supplement it was exactly that cured it, but I’m just very happy that for the first time ever in owning him he is thrush free.

So I guess in this case, it was all diet related. I can tell because his back feet also had their frogs double in size, and I haven’t been treating them with any products.

I did pick this up a few weeks back; I’m not sure how useful it was for the thrush treatment, but it’s very easy to apply and is clear so it doesn’t stain. I’m using it as a preventative on my horses in the muddy conditions we are having right now.

Dr. Naylor Hoof 'N Heel Livestock Wound Ointment, 16 fl. oz., HHP at Tractor...