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
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
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