Tips against Thrush

pferdefreund

Citizen of Zooville
Nobody asked for this, but I decided to up the daily dandruff with information about horse-keeping:


Today, we are going to learn about thrush !

Thrush is a bacterial infection of the equine hoof. Specifically, the softer part on the underside (the frog, in the middle to "back" of the hoof's sole) is affected.
The cause are anaerob bacteria. This classification means they love environments with no oxygen around. In heavy cases, fungal infections can ride alongside the bacteria once the frog is really destroyed.

Thrush is identified by looking underneath the cleaned hoof, to find a smeary black substance, and an odor of rotten eggs. Odor and smeary substance are produced by the bacteria as they eat the horses frog. This process causes 'pockets' of bacteria/substance, similar to a tooth decay 'holes' mechanism. The problem with thrush is that at some point the frog is too weak - the hoof sole can break, causing lameness and further infection. An end stadium of thrush can be a dead horse either from immobility (hoof literally useless), or a toxic shock when the infections reached the blood and overwhelmed the system. A lot of free ranging wild horses have a tiny bit of thrush all the time without dying immediately, notably.

Still, how does one defend against thrush?

1) Cleaning the hooves daily, once daily is the minimum actually. Twice daily seems to be enough (see point 2) to not have thrush.
2) Having a clean stall / place for the horse to stand. Cleaning the stall once daily is the absolute minimum but you will see thrush flaming up once in a while. Twice daily seems the absolute minimum in order not to constantly be battling the bacteria. The stall should be free of poop and liquids (stall mats really help here for the elevation over the hard floor level. But they need to be cleaned underneath once in a while. While you are at it, buy really thick stall mats, which give the horse a soft padding. Horses would prefer to lie on earth, not on concrete. Expect 1200 to 1500 USD2020 in costs for good mats for one horse stall). This may sound ridiculous, but some horses can be trained to only poop into a single corner. This helps you cleaning, and it provides a clean stall for the horse.
3) Don't cross-use hoofpicks between infected horses and not-infected horses. Wash and disinfect the hoofpick.

How does one treat thrush?

Recall that thrush is caused by anaerob bacteria. We thus need a) cleanliness b) disinfection and c) oxygen. And all of them together.

Clean the hooves, cut away dissolved parts of the frog. These are heavily contaminated with bacteria. Clean away all the smeary substance. This is pure bacteria and their leavings. You can use water and soap for that. If you find a "pocket" of this substance, carefully cut it open with the frog and hoof mechanics in mind. This is meant to enable you to best wash out the substance from the hoof. But it also enables ambient oxygen from the air to sour up the bacteria's life.

Next, apply disinfectants. What works well is iodine gel, a fatty gel containing povidon-iodine. This seems to enable the iodine to travel through the fatty part of the gel into the frog and attack the bacteria. Iodine also helps against fungi. If the gel (or iodine creme as a further alternative) is a bit expensive, you can use watery povidon-iodine like they have in canisters at the hospital. For the miracle of disinfection that is, this iodine is ridiculously cheap. I recommend to store a 2 gallon canister (or whatever the size they sell canisters in) in your house for the time after the apocalypse. Iodine is a medical miracle for every wound.
You can also use water-peroxide. The simplest peroxide, which they will sell to you. Apply generously, watch out if the horse is anxious over the fizzing sound the chemical makes. The fizzing is the release of oxygen right in the home of the oxygen hating bacteria.
The problem with watery chemicals is that they run away from the place we want to disinfect. You can also go for iodoform, and apply that with a syringe (pull the liquid from the bottle into the syringe and then use the syringe as a mini-spray-canon to spray the affected frog part with the iodoform). This application method will cause the iodine to form crystals. And which bacterium doesn't love to be buried in crystal a tenthousand times larger than itself of a subtance which is deadly to bacteria?
In case you want to try the home remedy route, go for concentrated vinegar. So you basically flood the bacteria with a heavy organic acid. But that's hard to breath during application.
Apply your disinfectant at least once (better twice) daily, after cleaning stall and hooves. Watch for change for the better. If none after two days of heavy battling the bacteria, change the disinfectant. I recommend to start with heavy doses of iodine (any), though.

In case you have problems with the watery solutions, or to protect your iodine crystals (iodoform is disproportionally expensive if they carry the chemical at all nowadays) and depending on the size of the pockets the bacteria made into the hoof - you can apply cotton wads to keep the hoof/these pockets from immediately being sullied again. Drown the pads in the disinfectant, and stuff them into the pockets or the frog. These wads - as they seal off oxygen and become dirty themselves - need to be exchanged daily, best twice daily as a minimum. In the seldom heavy cases mentioned, apply something against fungi, too. Although iodine should also take care of those.

And there you go. We now know how to prevent and treat thrush on a horses hoof.

Have a great time with you loved ones, don't forget to give them a kiss today
 
Last edited:
Well thanks for taking the time to compile the info and write up procedures. - I will look forward to seeing your next post
 
Iodine is incredibly drying and can be caustic when used excessively. As a hoof care professional I recommend its use only when conditions are very wet and only as a temporary solution if the owner is unwilling to use something better but slightly more time consuming. Hoof clay (purchased or homemade) is gentler on the hoof and just as effective at killing off thrush, though no topical application will ever fully prevent thrush. The only way to prevent thrush is through plenty of movement for proper stimulation of the frog (a healthy frog is wide and thick with uncontracted heels on either side) and the addition of minerals essential to hoof health (zinc and copper being the main ones). I'd be glad to direct anyone interested to evidence based educational materials on the subject matter, just direct message me.
 
Has anyone ever tried melted paraffin wax as a hoof treatment for thrush? I would think the hot wax would kill the bacteria and then harden allowing you to pull the dirt and debris away from the hoof sole, but I can't find any information on if others have tried this.
 
Some thoughts on the wax idea:

Thrush being anaerobic, anything that will keep oxygen away from it would make things worse, so the wax idea might be counterproductive, sealing in the bacteria that it didn't kill.

The environment the hoof is exposed to is the biggest factor in thrush- muddy/wet/urine soaked area's are prime living conditions for the anaerobic bacteria that causes thrush- addressing those conditions when possible is very helpful. Lime can be used to lower bacteria in these area's, but keep in mind it becomes caustic in too high concentrations.

Physical abrasion/excising with rasp/knife of infected areas to expose them to oxygen and a copper sulfate/vinegar bath- followed by daily concentrated copper sulfate topical, was my go-to method for treatment of thrush. Persistent treatment is key.

For an interesting alternative, I might try water heavily infused with ozone (O3)- I've never tried that, but I bet it would work really well- I know it will kill athletes foot (another anaerobic bacteria) with a single treatment, and can sanitize large pools/spa's with barely any other chemicals...

Ozone breaks down into oxygen and leaves no residue- it's 'mother natures' cleaning method- keep that in mind if researching it- natural ozone often accompanies pollution, the molecular friction of which produces it- the effects of the two are often conflated. There's lot's of poor quality news/info out there on the topic- over-hyped safety/danger, uses....don't drink the stuff- terrible idea unless your trying to deliberately nuke your internal microbiome- which would be very ill-advised in most circumstances.
 
I know it will kill athletes foot (another anaerobic bacteria) with a single treatment, and can sanitize large pools/spa's with barely any other chemicals...

Ozone breaks down into oxygen and leaves no residue- it's 'mother natures' cleaning method- keep that in mind if researching it- natural ozone often accompanies pollution, the molecular friction of which produces it- the effects of the two are often conflated. There's lot's of poor quality news/info out there on the topic- over-hyped safety/danger, uses....don't drink the stuff- terrible idea unless your trying to deliberately nuke your internal microbiome- which would be very ill-advised in most circumstances.

Sorry, but a couple of nitpicks... Athlete's foot - medically speaking "Tinea Pedis" (also known as "Jock itch", or medically, "Tinea Cruris") *IS NOT* caused by bacteria, and treating it as if it were *WILL* fail miserably. Both conditions are caused by a group of different fungus species, including species of Trichophyton, Epidermophyton, and Microsporum. The only differnce between the athlete's foot and jock itch is where on the body it appears.

Further, when ozone, which is a form of oxygen (three atoms of oxygen glommed together instead of the usual two) concentration gets high enough, it'll rip up your lungs just as bad as straight chlorine gas would. Some folks are particularly sensitive to it, and it'll mess their day up at levels that most other folks barely, if at all, notice. "Drinking" ozone is something that you'll never see happen - because ozone is, like its chemical cousin oxygen, a gas at any temperature and pressure a non-lab-tech type person is ever likely to encounter it. Assuming you can put your hands on a beaker full of liquid ozone (Use thick gloves if/when you try...), trying to drink it will cause cryogenic burns, exactly like drinking liquid nitrogen or other cryogenic gasses would, and assuming you're able to get more than a gulp down your throat, will kill you by exploding your stomach as it "boils" into a huge volume of gas from your body heat.
 
Opps! you're correct about athletes foot being a fungus- my error, I was remembering that wrong. You're wrong that Ozone can't be infused in water though- It can, and it does kill athletes foot....personal experience.

Just like regular oxygen, ozone can be infused in water at room temperature - like how they aerate ponds- it has a short half-life, and reverts to back to regular water pretty quickly- but depending on concentration it can be a powerful oxidizer and very useful for sanitation.

When concentrated in water it will brighten stained surfaces similarly to bleach- or make colors fade... There IS terrible advice on the internet telling people to drink it. I expect it would be fine for a brief hoof soaking- safer then bleach mix I'd think...but yeah, it's an oxidizer, you're not wrong about that- that's how it'd kill the thrush...
 
Has anyone ever tried melted paraffin wax as a hoof treatment for thrush? I would think the hot wax would kill the bacteria and then harden allowing you to pull the dirt and debris away from the hoof sole, but I can't find any information on if others have tried this.

Not hot enough to do what you're hoping for without causing worse problems than you're trying to cure. The idea isn't inherently bad, just non-functional. The bug that causes thrush survives short excursions up into the 190-200 degrees F range without any difficulty. Paraffin wax starts to melt around 100F, and like any wax or oil, can be heated further, though if you get it too hot, it can and will burst into flame Getting it hot enough, and keeping it that way, long enough to kill off the thrush-bugs will "cook" the sole and soft tissue it covers, causing *MUCH* worse trouble than anything but the absolute worst case of thrush ever could.
 
Opps! you're correct about athletes foot being a fungus- my error, I was remembering that wrong. You're wrong that Ozone can't be infused in water though- It can, and it does kill athletes foot....personal experience.

Ozone infused water is just that - ozone-infused water. Drink that, and you're drinking water. <shrug> So what? No different than drinking water you've bubbled oxygen through. You spoke of drinking ozone - to me, that means you're drinking... well... OZONE! Which, as I stated, isn't either likely, or a good idea, for the reasons already stated.
 
My language was a bit unclear I guess- I did go from writing about gas ozone, to infused ozone without much differentiation. The previous paragraph had mentioned infusion though, and as you pointed out so well, pure liquid ozone is not possible outside a lab so I"m unclear why you would think I was talking about that... so..(shrug)

A high enough concentration ozone infusion will eat thick algae/sludge out of a pool very quickly- it's every bit as effective as chlorine shock treatment...

I've also cleaned my countertops with the stuff- I can promise you, it's not just water, and it would definitely be harmful to drink...at that concentration, it will burn your skin with prolonged exposure.
 
My language was a bit unclear I guess- I did go from writing about gas ozone, to infused ozone without much differentiation. The previous paragraph had mentioned infusion though, and as you pointed out so well, pure liquid ozone is not possible outside a lab so I"m unclear why you would think I was talking about that... so..(shrug)

A high enough concentration ozone infusion will eat thick algae/sludge out of a pool very quickly- it's every bit as effective as chlorine shock treatment...

I've also cleaned my countertops with the stuff- I can promise you, it's not just water, and it would definitely be harmful to drink...at that concentration, it will burn your skin with prolonged exposure.
Eh... I guess we'll let you live... THIS TIME! Bwahahahahahaha! :devilish:
 
It's more the physical debridement I was concerned with. When the wax cools it hardens and can physically remove some of the outer layers of material, possibly cleaning the hoof beyond the reach of a hoof pick or knife. I was just looking for more information on the subject as one limiting thing I've found with the other chemical treatments is that they tend to kill the fungus and bacteria, but fail to physically clean the hoof.
 
It's more the physical debridement I was concerned with. When the wax cools it hardens and can physically remove some of the outer layers of material, possibly cleaning the hoof beyond the reach of a hoof pick or knife. I was just looking for more information on the subject as one limiting thing I've found with the other chemical treatments is that they tend to kill the fungus and bacteria, but fail to physically clean the hoof.

For that purpose, there are things that are going to work a lot better - The first thing that comes to my mind is plain old home-depot silicone caulking compound. Pump it in, pack it tight, wrap the foot in saran wrap or similar, and let it set up. Come back tomorrow and peel it out, and you'll likely have a spandy-clean foot, even if it isn't going to do much towards actually killing off the bugs.
 
The idea was more towards a combined approach of initial chemical debridement followed up with physical debridement in both cases. I do admit the silicone caulking sounds possibly effective. I have always thought to use the silicone as the hoof insole that goes into the boot later. but as a debridement agent it might actually work okay.

They have those accelerators for the caulking mix, however my primary concern would be getting a low enough viscosity to reach the bottom before hardening.
 
The idea was more towards a combined approach of initial chemical debridement followed up with physical debridement in both cases. I do admit the silicone caulking sounds possibly effective. I have always thought to use the silicone as the hoof insole that goes into the boot later. but as a debridement agent it might actually work okay.

They have those accelerators for the caulking mix, however my primary concern would be getting a low enough viscosity to reach the bottom before hardening.
Silicone caulk is pretty thick stuff, but it can be worked very easily (almost TOO easily - after all, it's designed to fill voids and seal cracks) and all the brands I know about take AT LEAST 3 hours to set up enough that you'd be able to peel it off (as opposed to needing to "spoon it out") 24 hours is closer to reality for most of them, which is why I mentioned the "come back tomorrow" part.

If I had a thrush case to deal with, my first move would be to reach for the pick and hoof knife to open things up as much as practical, then using a dosing syringe or similar, dribble in straight clorox (avoid getting it on/into the hairy areas - can cause chemical burns on skin, and/or (temporary) hair loss), work it in with a toothbrush or similar, then leave it stand for a few minutes before a thorough water rinse, dry it off good, maybe even using a blow-dryer, and paint with venice turpentine. Of course, if the critter is kept in a wet/shitty stall, it ain't gonna do a damned bit of good - (s)he's gonna be re-infected before you walk out of the barn, and in a day or three, you'll be back at square one.
 
You can get silicone that cures in as low as about 7 minutes, but you would not be able to get that at home depot. Those are the ones they use in the hoof packing syringes.

Yeah I am familiar enough with standard techniques. I just find that most of them fail to remove the fine layer of dust, dirt and remaining thrush black marks to really get down to a very clean hoof however, which is more what I'm trying to reach a solution for.

I don't really approve of stalling horses in general since it's fairly bad for their health and it tends to not be their preference at all except in the cold weather. Most stalls are far too small in my opinion as well.
 
We think pretty much alike, then - Given its choice, I haven't met a horse yet that wouldn't rather stand out in the rain than be stuffed into a stall. My girls used to have 6 stalls (with the dividers removed) open 24/7 - yet the only time they'd bother to go inside was when the weather was severely shitty (cold, soaking rain with a driving wind pushing it around), at chow time, and when we were "playing". Any other time, you could go out in damn near any weather, and see them standing/laying/whatever outside. Funny how they NEVER got thrush under conditions like that... :)
 
They will stand or lie in their own manure sometimes if it's a bit chilly out for the warmth, but you can effectively stop this behavior with either a horse blanket or socks to keep their legs from getting snow stuck to them. This can help with reducing thrush as well. Generally they will also decide that one area is the designated bathroom spot as well and are pretty easy to litter train in this regard if you keep encouraging them on the subject.
 
They will stand or lie in their own manure sometimes if it's a bit chilly out for the warmth,
That reminds me of a piece I saw a long time back - Google up "Your horses are on fire" but *DON'T* be drinking anything as you read it! I'll not be held responsible for monitors, keyboards, or other electronics being sprayed with any liquid! :)
 
The bacteria that cause thrush is endemic, which means any idea that you can avoid the bacteria is crazy. You have to keep the horse and it's environment healthy. Usually, once that happens, thrush goes away. Of course, some horses will never have truly healthy hooves, and some environments can't be made completely healthy, so in those places you're going to have to take more active approaches to hoof (and horse) health.

A good mild disinfectant is hydrogen peroxide. There is only so much you can do to make a 'mild' disinfectant, if it can kill infectious living organisms, it's probably not going to be completely harmless to living animal tissues.
 
Nobody asked for this, but I decided to up the daily dandruff with information about horse-keeping:


Today, we are going to learn about thrush !

Thrush is a bacterial infection of the equine hoof. Specifically, the softer part on the underside (the frog, in the middle to "back" of the hoof's sole) is affected.
The cause are anaerob bacteria. This classification means they love environments with no oxygen around. In heavy cases, fungal infections can ride alongside the bacteria once the frog is really destroyed.

Thrush is identified by looking underneath the cleaned hoof, to find a smeary black substance, and an odor of rotten eggs. Odor and smeary substance are produced by the bacteria as they eat the horses frog. This process causes 'pockets' of bacteria/substance, similar to a tooth decay 'holes' mechanism. The problem with thrush is that at some point the frog is too weak - the hoof sole can break, causing lameness and further infection. An end stadium of thrush can be a dead horse either from immobility (hoof literally useless), or a toxic shock when the infections reached the blood and overwhelmed the system. A lot of free ranging wild horses have a tiny bit of thrush all the time without dying immediately, notably.

Still, how does one defend against thrush?

1) Cleaning the hooves daily, once daily is the minimum actually. Twice daily seems to be enough (see point 2) to not have thrush.
2) Having a clean stall / place for the horse to stand. Cleaning the stall once daily is the absolute minimum but you will see thrush flaming up once in a while. Twice daily seems the absolute minimum in order not to constantly be battling the bacteria. The stall should be free of poop and liquids (stall mats really help here for the elevation over the hard floor level. But they need to be cleaned underneath once in a while. While you are at it, buy really thick stall mats, which give the horse a soft padding. Horses would prefer to lie on earth, not on concrete. Expect 1200 to 1500 USD2020 in costs for good mats for one horse stall). This may sound ridiculous, but some horses can be trained to only poop into a single corner. This helps you cleaning, and it provides a clean stall for the horse.
3) Don't cross-use hoofpicks between infected horses and not-infected horses. Wash and disinfect the hoofpick.

How does one treat thrush?

Recall that thrush is caused by anaerob bacteria. We thus need a) cleanliness b) disinfection and c) oxygen. And all of them together.

Clean the hooves, cut away dissolved parts of the frog. These are heavily contaminated with bacteria. Clean away all the smeary substance. This is pure bacteria and their leavings. You can use water and soap for that. If you find a "pocket" of this substance, carefully cut it open with the frog and hoof mechanics in mind. This is meant to enable you to best wash out the substance from the hoof. But it also enables ambient oxygen from the air to sour up the bacteria's life.

Next, apply disinfectants. What works well is iodine gel, a fatty gel containing povidon-iodine. This seems to enable the iodine to travel through the fatty part of the gel into the frog and attack the bacteria. Iodine also helps against fungi. If the gel (or iodine creme as a further alternative) is a bit expensive, you can use watery povidon-iodine like they have in canisters at the hospital. For the miracle of disinfection that is, this iodine is ridiculously cheap. I recommend to store a 2 gallon canister (or whatever the size they sell canisters in) in your house for the time after the apocalypse. Iodine is a medical miracle for every wound.
You can also use water-peroxide. The simplest peroxide, which they will sell to you. Apply generously, watch out if the horse is anxious over the fizzing sound the chemical makes. The fizzing is the release of oxygen right in the home of the oxygen hating bacteria.
The problem with watery chemicals is that they run away from the place we want to disinfect. You can also go for iodoform, and apply that with a syringe (pull the liquid from the bottle into the syringe and then use the syringe as a mini-spray-canon to spray the affected frog part with the iodoform). This application method will cause the iodine to form crystals. And which bacterium doesn't love to be buried in crystal a tenthousand times larger than itself of a subtance which is deadly to bacteria?
In case you want to try the home remedy route, go for concentrated vinegar. So you basically flood the bacteria with a heavy organic acid. But that's hard to breath during application.
Apply your disinfectant at least once (better twice) daily, after cleaning stall and hooves. Watch for change for the better. If none after two days of heavy battling the bacteria, change the disinfectant. I recommend to start with heavy doses of iodine (any), though.

In case you have problems with the watery solutions, or to protect your iodine crystals (iodoform is disproportionally expensive if they carry the chemical at all nowadays) and depending on the size of the pockets the bacteria made into the hoof - you can apply cotton wads to keep the hoof/these pockets from immediately being sullied again. Drown the pads in the disinfectant, and stuff them into the pockets or the frog. These wads - as they seal off oxygen and become dirty themselves - need to be exchanged daily, best twice daily as a minimum. In the seldom heavy cases mentioned, apply something against fungi, too. Although iodine should also take care of those.

And there you go. We now know how to prevent and treat thrush on a horses hoof.

Have a great time with you loved ones, don't forget to give them a kiss today
The go-to remedy for thrush at my ranch was always a bleach solution followed by hoof packing. We'd use a hydro syringe or spray bottle of bleach stuff (I forget the dilution exactly, but it was pretty mild.) to flush out everything a thorough hoof-picking didn't get and kill bacteria. Then tarry hoof packing would seal residual bleach in and mud out to prevent further infection.
 
Silicone caulk is pretty thick stuff, but it can be worked very easily (almost TOO easily - after all, it's designed to fill voids and seal cracks) and all the brands I know about take AT LEAST 3 hours to set up enough that you'd be able to peel it off (as opposed to needing to "spoon it out") 24 hours is closer to reality for most of them, which is why I mentioned the "come back tomorrow" part.

If I had a thrush case to deal with, my first move would be to reach for the pick and hoof knife to open things up as much as practical, then using a dosing syringe or similar, dribble in straight clorox (avoid getting it on/into the hairy areas - can cause chemical burns on skin, and/or (temporary) hair loss), work it in with a toothbrush or similar, then leave it stand for a few minutes before a thorough water rinse, dry it off good, maybe even using a blow-dryer, and paint with venice turpentine. Of course, if the critter is kept in a wet/shitty stall, it ain't gonna do a damned bit of good - (s)he's gonna be re-infected before you walk out of the barn, and in a day or three, you'll be back at square one.
Yeah I was taught to always follow up thrush treatment with hoof packing for that exact problem. Stalls and turnouts are a muddy mess every spring, so trying to keep bacteria out is important.
 
Nobody asked for this, but I decided to up the daily dandruff with information about horse-keeping:


Today, we are going to learn about thrush !

Thrush is a bacterial infection of the equine hoof. Specifically, the softer part on the underside (the frog, in the middle to "back" of the hoof's sole) is affected.
The cause are anaerob bacteria. This classification means they love environments with no oxygen around. In heavy cases, fungal infections can ride alongside the bacteria once the frog is really destroyed.

Thrush is identified by looking underneath the cleaned hoof, to find a smeary black substance, and an odor of rotten eggs. Odor and smeary substance are produced by the bacteria as they eat the horses frog. This process causes 'pockets' of bacteria/substance, similar to a tooth decay 'holes' mechanism. The problem with thrush is that at some point the frog is too weak - the hoof sole can break, causing lameness and further infection. An end stadium of thrush can be a dead horse either from immobility (hoof literally useless), or a toxic shock when the infections reached the blood and overwhelmed the system. A lot of free ranging wild horses have a tiny bit of thrush all the time without dying immediately, notably.

Still, how does one defend against thrush?

1) Cleaning the hooves daily, once daily is the minimum actually. Twice daily seems to be enough (see point 2) to not have thrush.
2) Having a clean stall / place for the horse to stand. Cleaning the stall once daily is the absolute minimum but you will see thrush flaming up once in a while. Twice daily seems the absolute minimum in order not to constantly be battling the bacteria. The stall should be free of poop and liquids (stall mats really help here for the elevation over the hard floor level. But they need to be cleaned underneath once in a while. While you are at it, buy really thick stall mats, which give the horse a soft padding. Horses would prefer to lie on earth, not on concrete. Expect 1200 to 1500 USD2020 in costs for good mats for one horse stall). This may sound ridiculous, but some horses can be trained to only poop into a single corner. This helps you cleaning, and it provides a clean stall for the horse.
3) Don't cross-use hoofpicks between infected horses and not-infected horses. Wash and disinfect the hoofpick.

How does one treat thrush?

Recall that thrush is caused by anaerob bacteria. We thus need a) cleanliness b) disinfection and c) oxygen. And all of them together.

Clean the hooves, cut away dissolved parts of the frog. These are heavily contaminated with bacteria. Clean away all the smeary substance. This is pure bacteria and their leavings. You can use water and soap for that. If you find a "pocket" of this substance, carefully cut it open with the frog and hoof mechanics in mind. This is meant to enable you to best wash out the substance from the hoof. But it also enables ambient oxygen from the air to sour up the bacteria's life.

Next, apply disinfectants. What works well is iodine gel, a fatty gel containing povidon-iodine. This seems to enable the iodine to travel through the fatty part of the gel into the frog and attack the bacteria. Iodine also helps against fungi. If the gel (or iodine creme as a further alternative) is a bit expensive, you can use watery povidon-iodine like they have in canisters at the hospital. For the miracle of disinfection that is, this iodine is ridiculously cheap. I recommend to store a 2 gallon canister (or whatever the size they sell canisters in) in your house for the time after the apocalypse. Iodine is a medical miracle for every wound.
You can also use water-peroxide. The simplest peroxide, which they will sell to you. Apply generously, watch out if the horse is anxious over the fizzing sound the chemical makes. The fizzing is the release of oxygen right in the home of the oxygen hating bacteria.
The problem with watery chemicals is that they run away from the place we want to disinfect. You can also go for iodoform, and apply that with a syringe (pull the liquid from the bottle into the syringe and then use the syringe as a mini-spray-canon to spray the affected frog part with the iodoform). This application method will cause the iodine to form crystals. And which bacterium doesn't love to be buried in crystal a tenthousand times larger than itself of a subtance which is deadly to bacteria?
In case you want to try the home remedy route, go for concentrated vinegar. So you basically flood the bacteria with a heavy organic acid. But that's hard to breath during application.
Apply your disinfectant at least once (better twice) daily, after cleaning stall and hooves. Watch for change for the better. If none after two days of heavy battling the bacteria, change the disinfectant. I recommend to start with heavy doses of iodine (any), though.

In case you have problems with the watery solutions, or to protect your iodine crystals (iodoform is disproportionally expensive if they carry the chemical at all nowadays) and depending on the size of the pockets the bacteria made into the hoof - you can apply cotton wads to keep the hoof/these pockets from immediately being sullied again. Drown the pads in the disinfectant, and stuff them into the pockets or the frog. These wads - as they seal off oxygen and become dirty themselves - need to be exchanged daily, best twice daily as a minimum. In the seldom heavy cases mentioned, apply something against fungi, too. Although iodine should also take care of those.

And there you go. We now know how to prevent and treat thrush on a horses hoof.

Have a great time with you loved ones, don't forget to give them a kiss today
Please please please do not cut your horse’s hoof without tons of training. It may seem like just clipping a nail but it’s very precise and a lot can go wrong
 
Please please please do not cut your horse’s hoof without tons of training. It may seem like just clipping a nail but it’s very precise and a lot can go wrong
Please, quit with the fearmongering. While it's true that the POSSIBILITY of fucking things up exists, we're not exactly talking about rocket surgery. Unless you're a completely inept idiot with no clue whatsoever what you're doing, the worst that's *REALISTICALLY* likely to happen is you might "pink" the critter, leaving it somewhere between "ouchy" and "a bit lame" for a day or two. All bets are, of course, off if you're stupid enough to do something as incredibly dumb as hauling out the power tools and hacking/grinding away blindly.

For a horse person with reasonable knowledge/skills and rudimentary tools, working with an otherwise basically sound/healthy horse, the chances of doing any significant harm while trying to open up the typical thrushy foot are so small as to barely be worth considering. Complicating factors (super-bad case with secondary infection/abscess, foot eaten away to the point of being bloody, horse with a rotated coffin bone, or similar "near disaster" cases - which should have a vet and/or farrier called in from the git-go) MIGHT be in play, but once again, unless one is a fool, such things ought to be noticed fairly quickly - long before any significant damage can be done - and a professional called in to deal with a situation that's "above your pay grade".
 
Nobody asked for this, but I decided to up the daily dandruff with information about horse-keeping:


Today, we are going to learn about thrush !

Thrush is a bacterial infection of the equine hoof. Specifically, the softer part on the underside (the frog, in the middle to "back" of the hoof's sole) is affected.
The cause are anaerob bacteria. This classification means they love environments with no oxygen around. In heavy cases, fungal infections can ride alongside the bacteria once the frog is really destroyed.

Thrush is identified by looking underneath the cleaned hoof, to find a smeary black substance, and an odor of rotten eggs. Odor and smeary substance are produced by the bacteria as they eat the horses frog. This process causes 'pockets' of bacteria/substance, similar to a tooth decay 'holes' mechanism. The problem with thrush is that at some point the frog is too weak - the hoof sole can break, causing lameness and further infection. An end stadium of thrush can be a dead horse either from immobility (hoof literally useless), or a toxic shock when the infections reached the blood and overwhelmed the system. A lot of free ranging wild horses have a tiny bit of thrush all the time without dying immediately, notably.

Still, how does one defend against thrush?

1) Cleaning the hooves daily, once daily is the minimum actually. Twice daily seems to be enough (see point 2) to not have thrush.
2) Having a clean stall / place for the horse to stand. Cleaning the stall once daily is the absolute minimum but you will see thrush flaming up once in a while. Twice daily seems the absolute minimum in order not to constantly be battling the bacteria. The stall should be free of poop and liquids (stall mats really help here for the elevation over the hard floor level. But they need to be cleaned underneath once in a while. While you are at it, buy really thick stall mats, which give the horse a soft padding. Horses would prefer to lie on earth, not on concrete. Expect 1200 to 1500 USD2020 in costs for good mats for one horse stall). This may sound ridiculous, but some horses can be trained to only poop into a single corner. This helps you cleaning, and it provides a clean stall for the horse.
3) Don't cross-use hoofpicks between infected horses and not-infected horses. Wash and disinfect the hoofpick.

How does one treat thrush?

Recall that thrush is caused by anaerob bacteria. We thus need a) cleanliness b) disinfection and c) oxygen. And all of them together.

Clean the hooves, cut away dissolved parts of the frog. These are heavily contaminated with bacteria. Clean away all the smeary substance. This is pure bacteria and their leavings. You can use water and soap for that. If you find a "pocket" of this substance, carefully cut it open with the frog and hoof mechanics in mind. This is meant to enable you to best wash out the substance from the hoof. But it also enables ambient oxygen from the air to sour up the bacteria's life.

Next, apply disinfectants. What works well is iodine gel, a fatty gel containing povidon-iodine. This seems to enable the iodine to travel through the fatty part of the gel into the frog and attack the bacteria. Iodine also helps against fungi. If the gel (or iodine creme as a further alternative) is a bit expensive, you can use watery povidon-iodine like they have in canisters at the hospital. For the miracle of disinfection that is, this iodine is ridiculously cheap. I recommend to store a 2 gallon canister (or whatever the size they sell canisters in) in your house for the time after the apocalypse. Iodine is a medical miracle for every wound.
You can also use water-peroxide. The simplest peroxide, which they will sell to you. Apply generously, watch out if the horse is anxious over the fizzing sound the chemical makes. The fizzing is the release of oxygen right in the home of the oxygen hating bacteria.
The problem with watery chemicals is that they run away from the place we want to disinfect. You can also go for iodoform, and apply that with a syringe (pull the liquid from the bottle into the syringe and then use the syringe as a mini-spray-canon to spray the affected frog part with the iodoform). This application method will cause the iodine to form crystals. And which bacterium doesn't love to be buried in crystal a tenthousand times larger than itself of a subtance which is deadly to bacteria?
In case you want to try the home remedy route, go for concentrated vinegar. So you basically flood the bacteria with a heavy organic acid. But that's hard to breath during application.
Apply your disinfectant at least once (better twice) daily, after cleaning stall and hooves. Watch for change for the better. If none after two days of heavy battling the bacteria, change the disinfectant. I recommend to start with heavy doses of iodine (any), though.

In case you have problems with the watery solutions, or to protect your iodine crystals (iodoform is disproportionally expensive if they carry the chemical at all nowadays) and depending on the size of the pockets the bacteria made into the hoof - you can apply cotton wads to keep the hoof/these pockets from immediately being sullied again. Drown the pads in the disinfectant, and stuff them into the pockets or the frog. These wads - as they seal off oxygen and become dirty themselves - need to be exchanged daily, best twice daily as a minimum. In the seldom heavy cases mentioned, apply something against fungi, too. Although iodine should also take care of those.

And there you go. We now know how to prevent and treat thrush on a horses hoof.

Have a great time with you loved ones, don't forget to give them a kiss today
Thank you for making time to make this thread and giving us this info
 
Nobody asked for this, but I decided to up the daily dandruff with information about horse-keeping:


Today, we are going to learn about thrush !

Thrush is a bacterial infection of the equine hoof. Specifically, the softer part on the underside (the frog, in the middle to "back" of the hoof's sole) is affected.
The cause are anaerob bacteria. This classification means they love environments with no oxygen around. In heavy cases, fungal infections can ride alongside the bacteria once the frog is really destroyed.

Thrush is identified by looking underneath the cleaned hoof, to find a smeary black substance, and an odor of rotten eggs. Odor and smeary substance are produced by the bacteria as they eat the horses frog. This process causes 'pockets' of bacteria/substance, similar to a tooth decay 'holes' mechanism. The problem with thrush is that at some point the frog is too weak - the hoof sole can break, causing lameness and further infection. An end stadium of thrush can be a dead horse either from immobility (hoof literally useless), or a toxic shock when the infections reached the blood and overwhelmed the system. A lot of free ranging wild horses have a tiny bit of thrush all the time without dying immediately, notably.

Still, how does one defend against thrush?

1) Cleaning the hooves daily, once daily is the minimum actually. Twice daily seems to be enough (see point 2) to not have thrush.
2) Having a clean stall / place for the horse to stand. Cleaning the stall once daily is the absolute minimum but you will see thrush flaming up once in a while. Twice daily seems the absolute minimum in order not to constantly be battling the bacteria. The stall should be free of poop and liquids (stall mats really help here for the elevation over the hard floor level. But they need to be cleaned underneath once in a while. While you are at it, buy really thick stall mats, which give the horse a soft padding. Horses would prefer to lie on earth, not on concrete. Expect 1200 to 1500 USD2020 in costs for good mats for one horse stall). This may sound ridiculous, but some horses can be trained to only poop into a single corner. This helps you cleaning, and it provides a clean stall for the horse.
3) Don't cross-use hoofpicks between infected horses and not-infected horses. Wash and disinfect the hoofpick.

How does one treat thrush?

Recall that thrush is caused by anaerob bacteria. We thus need a) cleanliness b) disinfection and c) oxygen. And all of them together.

Clean the hooves, cut away dissolved parts of the frog. These are heavily contaminated with bacteria. Clean away all the smeary substance. This is pure bacteria and their leavings. You can use water and soap for that. If you find a "pocket" of this substance, carefully cut it open with the frog and hoof mechanics in mind. This is meant to enable you to best wash out the substance from the hoof. But it also enables ambient oxygen from the air to sour up the bacteria's life.

Next, apply disinfectants. What works well is iodine gel, a fatty gel containing povidon-iodine. This seems to enable the iodine to travel through the fatty part of the gel into the frog and attack the bacteria. Iodine also helps against fungi. If the gel (or iodine creme as a further alternative) is a bit expensive, you can use watery povidon-iodine like they have in canisters at the hospital. For the miracle of disinfection that is, this iodine is ridiculously cheap. I recommend to store a 2 gallon canister (or whatever the size they sell canisters in) in your house for the time after the apocalypse. Iodine is a medical miracle for every wound.
You can also use water-peroxide. The simplest peroxide, which they will sell to you. Apply generously, watch out if the horse is anxious over the fizzing sound the chemical makes. The fizzing is the release of oxygen right in the home of the oxygen hating bacteria.
The problem with watery chemicals is that they run away from the place we want to disinfect. You can also go for iodoform, and apply that with a syringe (pull the liquid from the bottle into the syringe and then use the syringe as a mini-spray-canon to spray the affected frog part with the iodoform). This application method will cause the iodine to form crystals. And which bacterium doesn't love to be buried in crystal a tenthousand times larger than itself of a subtance which is deadly to bacteria?
In case you want to try the home remedy route, go for concentrated vinegar. So you basically flood the bacteria with a heavy organic acid. But that's hard to breath during application.
Apply your disinfectant at least once (better twice) daily, after cleaning stall and hooves. Watch for change for the better. If none after two days of heavy battling the bacteria, change the disinfectant. I recommend to start with heavy doses of iodine (any), though.

In case you have problems with the watery solutions, or to protect your iodine crystals (iodoform is disproportionally expensive if they carry the chemical at all nowadays) and depending on the size of the pockets the bacteria made into the hoof - you can apply cotton wads to keep the hoof/these pockets from immediately being sullied again. Drown the pads in the disinfectant, and stuff them into the pockets or the frog. These wads - as they seal off oxygen and become dirty themselves - need to be exchanged daily, best twice daily as a minimum. In the seldom heavy cases mentioned, apply something against fungi, too. Although iodine should also take care of those.

And there you go. We now know how to prevent and treat thrush on a horses hoof.

Have a great time with you loved ones, don't forget to give them a kiss today
Awe I'm not a horse owner but this is so kind as I'm a lover of mare never been with one but still find there beauty breath taking
 
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