Hoof Tougheners and Thrush Prevention

I try not to post too often on ridecamp.  I think I’ve probably exceeded my allotment for the week, so will answer the question about what I use to toughen feet and treat thrush here in my blog.  I’ve covered this stuff before, sometimes the posts get buried because they are a year or more old.  You can do a search in the top right corner if you’d like to read more.

Even though I live in a climate that has seasons, I don’t generally have a problem with thrush in my horses feet.  I usually clean their hooves out fairly regularly when it’s muddy just so they don’t end up with manure packed in there.  It’s okay if it’s mud that is packed in the hooves, but unless you pull it out you don’t know that.  So I pick their feet clean at least two or three times a week.

Over this last ride season I have talked a bit about thrush (see here) because it can be an issue for riders who are gluing hoof boots on their horses for an extended period of time.  It’s not such a big deal if the boots are only on for a weekend or even one week for a multiday ride.  However, once you start leaving boots on for weeks and weeks there is a good chance that some thrush will develop.  It seems like that particular type of thrush can sometimes be a little bit different than what most of us view as regular thrush.  I know my horse has thrush if I can dig out black goopey stuff mixed in with white flakey stuff, and it smells.  The thrush that you may encounter from having a hoof sealed up for a few weeks may or may not smell and there may not be any visible signs other than your horse is tender footed.  And again, if you pull the boots off and put your horse up then don’t ride right away or put boots on to ride you might not notice the subtle difference in hoof sensitivity.  I tend to ride and work my horses pretty regularly barefoot and feel that leaving boots glued on for three weeks caused them to go through a couple week transition back to barefoot — even though when their shoes were pulled that didn’t happen.  Go figure!

There are many products on the market that can be used to treat thrush.  Do a google search and you’ll be overwhelmed with choices.  I like to keep things fairly simple, and usually when something works I stick with it.  That’s not to say that I won’t try to find something better, just that in the case of thrush I’ve found solutions that work well for me so I’m sticking with it.

For regular maintenance of the horses feet I simply clean out the frogs well like I mentioned before.  I like to make sure that there isn’t any manure or rotting material stuck in there.  Keeping things aired out helps a lot.  Right now that isn’t going to happen as we have had mud nonstop for months now.  Well, nonstop  mud except for when we’ve had snow.  Once I have the hoof clean I spray in apple cider vinegar.  I purchase it by the gallon at the supermarket and it’s fairly inexpensive.  The ph of the cider vinegar kills the thrush as does exposing it to air and removing any and all gunk that is in the foot.  Most of the time this is all I need to do.

If it looks like I have a more obvious case of thrush then I get more serious.  I use iodine and spray that into the frog crevices.  (click for Jeffer’s gentle iodine spray)  I don’t like to use iodine very often because it can be very drying and caustic and is hard on the soft tissues of the frog.  I know some people will probably choose not to use iodine because of that.  I don’t use it very often because it will dry out and harden a frog.  It’s a catch 22 between keeping the hoof healthy and not causing any additional harm to it.  Spraying iodine usually does the trick after just a couple of applications.

The next thing I use to treat thrush is also a good way to harden the feet up.  It’s called Durasole.  Here is a previous post that I did on it.  I apply it with a toothbrush and coat the bottom of the sole with it as well as get into the frog crevices if I think there is thrush in there.  I *do not* coat the entire frog with Durasole because it is also very drying and while I want tough feet that are thrush free I don’t want rock hard frogs.  (though in the summer sometimes they get pretty hard anyway)  Just be careful not to over do it with this stuff, a little goes a long way.

The best way to keep thrush at bay is by keeping poop and goop out of your horses feet and keeping the horses active and moving about in a variety of terrain.  The methods that I have mentioned for thrush treatment work for me well enough that I don’t feel the need to try anything else.  I like using the apple cider vinegar the best.

I always rinse my beet pulp well and pay close attention to sugars and NSC levels as a way to keep my horses feet from getting sensitive.

Also on the topic of hardening up hooves I’d like to make sure everybody understands that a lot of what you see in your horses feet comes from what went into your horse as well as what their environment is like.  It would be ideal if our horses all could live in large enough areas so that they never had to step in their own poop and could get to dry ground often enough while also going over pea gravel and a variety of terrain that would help keep the feet in good condition.

I can do all the right things to the outside of my horses feet (keeping them clean, good trimming, etc.) and it won’t amount to a hill of beans if I feed them the wrong kind of feed or do something else management wise that can make their hooves sore.  Having good hard feet that are free of thrush requires an overall management plan that involves so much more than what kind of products to apply to the bottom of the feet.