Hi everyone this is my first post… I was wondering if someone could tell me how to disinfect my stall to get rid of the thrush on the ground I rescued my horse a year ago this thrush is really bad I’m treating his feet but I’m hoping to find something to treat the stall that he’s in as my farrier said it’s probably living in the ground so I’m hoping there may be some way to disinfect it. Any help I can get would be great thank you in advance.
If you have a concrete floor you can just power wash and then maybe spray with bleach.
Honestly however horses do not just catch thrush from the ground like that. The fungus is probably everywhere but most horses don’t get an infection.
I would say, if you have a persistent case of thrush, look first to the hoof angle and trim on your horse. Contracted heels and atrophied frogs and deep frog sulcus invite thrush.
Look also to your stall hygeine, as standing in dirty bedding or wet mud can break down the horses resistance to infection. Pick out his feet daily.
Look to nutrition. Is the horse getting all his required vitamins and minerals? Is he getting a low starch and sugar diet?
Look to overall health. Is the horse in good weight, does he have Cushing’s or anything to compromise his auto immune system?
Finally what topical cures have you tried? I have heard about excellent cures with White Lightning which fumes up into the foot.
Honestly trying to kill the fungus in the environment is a bit hopeless.
If you post photos of the foot, post his diet, and give us some more detat, the COTH hive mind may have some more effective solutions.
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The causative agent in equine thrush is an anaerobic bacteria 
Agree that trying to disinfect the stall isn’t going to do much. Keep feet picked, make sure the trim is correct, and keeping the stall clean will go a long way. If it’s a central sculus problem, the cow mastitis treatment Tomorrow can be super useful with it’s narrow applicator.
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His trim is good he is on a low sugar diet the vet wants to do a cushings test I haven’t had it done yet but that’s why the low sugar diet. I just got some white lighting so will be doing a soak with that. I was just hoping there might be something I could do to kill the bacteria in his stall. I am super picky about his stall being clean it gets cleaned twice a day and has a thick bedding of shavings to soak up his urine.
You sure it is just thrush? IME one application of Tomorrow is enough to get most cases of thrush - then you stay on top of it with daily hoof-picking and a thrush remover as needed. Chronic cases of thrush make me suspect very bad trims, and/or not having their hooves picked often enough.
My best results for really gross and deep thrush is Tomorrow, and then follow once every other day with Durasole. Picking their feet every day is really important to keep thrush away – as is a good quality trim.
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Can you post photos of the feet?
Do the Cushing’s test. Cushing’s weakens the immune system and makes horses more likely to founder so you really want to know if that’s part of the picture.
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Yes I am going to do the test. When I rescued him his feet we’re sooooooooo bad they were splayed out like dinner plates and he had no heel. He was super skinny ribs showing and hips sticking out a lot. He is now a healthy weight but I am having problems building up his atrophied top line his other muscles are building up good but the top line is still bad. His feet are a good shape and the angle is good now it’s just the thrush I am fighting with. His feet get picked out at least once a day 80% of the time.
i have a TBI with chronic head pain and sometimes my head hurts so bad I can’t bend down or even hold my phone so yes there are days that I can’t do it but I do try my best. He is currently eating Eastern Oregon Orchard hay (it is tested and is low sugar), LMF gentle balance grain, and he gets MSN. I am going to be ordering some equine Omega complete and add that to his daily grain as well.
Is he getting the full ration of Gentle Balance, and if so what does that work out to in terms of his minerals and vitamins?
How old is he? I’ve seen a few horses come back from serious weight loss (in the Henneke 2 to 3 out of 10 range) and especially if they are older, once they lose that topline muscles it can be very hard to rebuild it even as the horse reaches a decent body weight over all. Especially if they are not in a good riding program. If the horse has an injury to its back or pelvis, the topline may never fully fill in, because the horse is not moving entirely correctly and is protecting itself. I have certainly seen old horses that are overweight but have atrophied toplines.
You might look at your feed and see if more protein is required. Do you have the test results on protein in the hay? Sometimes a little alfalfa or even a supplement of limiting amino acids can help the horse use the crude protein in the grass hay better.
If you want to develop topline, gentle in-hand work and lateral work will help the horse start to lift his belly and carry himself better.
What are your plans for this horse? Is he just a pasture pet, or are you hoping to rehab him for riding,and if so what discipline?
And what is his breed? TB are notoriously hard keepers, compared to QH, so a bit of backbone on a TB or a WB with alot of TB blood is within the range of normal, whereas you would rarely see that on many QH.
I think we need good stand up conformation photos and good hoof photos to advise.
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Many times thrush is caused by improperly balanced hooves. Trimmers leave too much heel and bars and there is no
functional movement within the hoof which in a healthy hoof cleans itself.
We need to see photos to rule this out. And many owners don’t really know what a properly trimmed hoof should look like.
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I would add that cleaning out the hooves daily matters for thrush. Now horses don’t get thrush simply from not having their feet picked out. And simply cleaning them daily doesn’t cure thrush. But if you have anything funky going on you need to clean their feet daily and apply your topical of choice.
White lightning is a one time treatment and a bit of work as you need to soak the feet in a sealed plastic bag. Perhaps you can do one foot at a time or on successive days.
But you also need to consider follow-up hygiene. Can anyone help you pick his feet out at least daily and apply iodine or Gentian Violet?
If you are unable to arrange proper hoof hygiene you might consider packing the frog grooves with a clay product that has antibacterial properties. I think one such is called Artemud and is used under glueon boots.
In this case you would clean the feet very very well, spotless, on one of your good days. Then you could use a topical. Then you pack the frog crevices with the clay. This would at least keep manure out of the foot for a few days.
Ime the cleaner and drier the stall and paddocks, the more chance my horse will end up with feet stuffed with pure fresh manure since nothing else in the stall will stick to her feet.
Her feet are always best after her pasture vacation in a field with clay soil that fills up her feet.
So he is 18 yrs old TWH/Pinto or Paint with some possible Draft. His bars are long I have a barefoot trimmer coming out on Monday to fix that and a body worker coming out on Tuesday so that should help too. I am trying to rehab him for Western trail riding and I am going to take some English lessons on him as well. He loves to jump so I would like to help him get to a point where he can do just small jumps as I will just be learning as well.
I tried to upload some photos but it says it cannot resize them to the size they need to be and I don’t know how to resize them manually. So I’m sorry I guess I won’t be able to upload photos unless somebody else can tell me how to do it without having to resize.
The easiest thing to do is go to imgur.com, set up an account, and upload there. Then post the link.
You can also upload to FB, make the pics public, and link here.
Or you can use something like paint on your computer to resize, then upload here. But pics upload here teeny, so really, a third party site that lets us see the pictures larger is better.
Went down a Google rabbit hole on vinegar. The WP article is from 2009 responding to an aggressive marketing claim by Heinz touting themselves as the “natural vinegar.” From what I can find online, it looks like it is both chemically possible and legal to make vinegar out of alcohol derived from petrochemicals. However, it also looks like no one is actually doing this in the food industry at the moment. There are a lot of health food blogs referencing the 2009 WP article and the Heinz campaign, with no further information added a decade later. I would be very interested if someone could supply a link to verified information on whether or not alcohol from petroleum is currently being used to ferment food grade vinegar. I mean, Heinz is one of the bigger food conglomerates so if they aren’t doing it, I’d be surprised if anyone is. Heinz isn’t exactly a natural food or green company overall.
