Hoof photo from January
I’ve been pretty lucky over the years in that my horses have never been prone to getting thrush. There are times in the winter when you clean out their feet and you get some black gunk out of the crevices of their hooves when they are standing in wet conditions for weeks at a time. It’s during those times that I pay close attention to checking hooves daily and if they’ve packed manure in I clean it out.
My horses are active enough being turned out 24×7 and it’s dry enough here usually that thrush is just not a problem. Especially over the last five years when my horses have been barefoot year around.
Once I started doing un-natural things to their hooves this year — like applying hoof boots and leaving them glued on for three weeks things changed. I made sure to disinfect the hooves and had them thoroughly cleaned prior to applying the boots. As it turned out it rained right off the bat so the horses were immediately in wet conditions. I don’t know if that really had anything to do with it or not. I know that hooves generate moisture on their own so when the foot is sealed up that moisture can’t go anywhere. I think that is what started the thrush.
And it’s why it didn’t smell. I also couldn’t see it. Though one time on Bo I dug deep into the frog crevice and it felt soft and I was able to dig out a little bit of black and white flaky colored stuff. Still though — no smell! I couldn’t get anything out of Chief’s feet, clean smelling as well and no discharge at all.
Thrush can’t live if it is exposed to air. So I kept things clean, disinfected and also cut away some of the frog that had grown thick and full because it was making it too difficult to thoroughly clean everything.
So you are probably wondering how I figured out that my horses had thrush even though it didn’t smell and there was nothing obvious to even see.
Note the nice heel first landing Chief has. Photo by Steve Bradley
Because I could feel it. When I was riding my horses if the back part of their foot hit uneven ground or a rock, they would flinch. This was pretty subtle but quite obvious to me since neither of these horses had ever done this before.
It was also why I was so certain that I did not want to use glued on boots on Chief at Schellbourne. By then Chief’s hoof toughness was back to normal and I just didn’t want to perpetuate the situation. Turned out that since I only had his front boots glued on for three days that was fine and not long enough to cause the issue to surface again. From now on you can bet I will only glue boots on for specific rides, then off they come!
Bo was the one that had more of an issue with this. Maybe because he hasn’t been barefoot as long? He has nice good sized quality hooves but he does have rather deep frogs (which I understand aren’t really a good thing). It was pretty odd to me initially that there was no smell at all and no obvious signs of thrush.
Yet when I rode Bo barefoot at a walk he would flinch several times going over stuff that never phased him before. When I put boots on he did the head dipping, flinching thing much less often. I treated for thrush and after a couple of days I could ride Bo barefoot and he would maybe do two flinches. In boots zero. The was the first week and now the problem is solved. btw – this isn’t something that you’d notice doing a trot out and back like for a vetcheck. Some riders might not even notice as I pointed this out to one at a ride and that person just did not realize that the horse they were riding was head dipping. And the horse didn’t do that before. So watch for this! Also, watch horses move going down the trail and check to see how their feet are landing – heel first, level, or toe first. I’ve heard others comment that horses landing toe first just are getting trimmed or shod poorly but what if that isn’t it it all – and the horse just has a deep case of thrush that isn’t obvious? If so, then it’s easy to fix.
Linda Cowles who runs the Healthy Hoof website and is a natural barefoot trimmer has a couple of pages about thrush information that contains a great deal of info. Below are the links, and here is an exerpt from one of them: Unfortunately, Thrush doesn’t always stink and have a discharge, and many owners and vets miss it. Its possible for Thrush to thrive in feet with hard dry frogs. Thrush contains anaerobic bacteria that flourish in tight cracks and deep central sulci.
People mistakenly believe that Thrush is something horses only have when the footing is damp and filthy. Once established in a hoof, thrush lingers on through summers driest days, creating extreme discomfort for the horses that have it.
Here is a link to Durasole which you can get from Jeffers. I like it because it will clear up thrush and toughen the hooves at the same time. I think that the act of cleaning the feet daily also helps as much as anything. I also use regular old iodine which I spray into the frog crevices. It is probably a little harsher than some of the other products that Linda recommends, I just used it because it was handy and I needed something right then – and it works.
Recent Comments