How to prevent and treat thrush in horses

to prevent thrush in horses
Thrush causes the hoof and frog to become soft and crumbly allowing the bacteria and fungi to penetrate and establish themselves leading to infection. Wet and muddy fields or soiled damp bedding are particular culprits with deep litter style bedding being amongst the worst. For this reason thrush is much more common in winter than summer.
Prevention is of course better than getting to the stage where it requires treatment so picking out your horses feet properly twice a day and maintaining clean dry bedding is essential. It can be difficult during the wetter months but avoiding having your horse standing in a badly poached field for long periods is important.
Treatment for horse thrush
Without treatment a horse thrush infection will progress and may affect the deeper structures within the foot causing serious distortion of the frog and ongoing lameness. The first treatment step is to look at the horses environment and management. Avoid deep litter beds and use an absorbent bedding with soiled areas removed twice a day.
Doing the following is also good practice
If the horse lives out in a wet or muddy field bringing them in will give the feet a chance to dry.
Hooves including the clefts of frog should be picked out twice a day.
Your farrier should attend as soon as possible to trim the feet and remove overgrown horn frog and underrun tissue.
This opens the area to fresh air and helps to reduce the anaerobic environment. If there is heel instability in a barefoot horse shoeing may be recommended.
Bar shoes and pads should be removed and the frog its grooves and the sole trimmed and paired back to visually healthy tissue by a vet or farrier allowing air to reach the affected tissue.
The foot should then be picked out carefully twice daily before scrubbing the frog
and sole with dilute iodine solution. Once washed the horse should be stood on a clean dry concrete area for about an hour to allow it to dry.
In terms of medical management and treatment of thrush the foot and frog tissue should first be cleaned using a stiff brush and Hibiscrub chlorhexidine solution.
After this a topical treatment may be applied such as oxytetracycline spray iodine copper sulphate or 10 formalin to name but a few.
How long does treatment take for thrush?
It is very important that the horse is kept in a clean dry stable where immaculate hygiene is maintained during the treatment period for thrush. Painkillers may be given by mouth if the horse is lame but antibiotic powders are rarely required. Tetanus cover must be given to an unvaccinated horse.
The management regime explained above should be maintained until the feet are back to normal and no longer showing signs of thrush thats probably going to take around two to three weeks but sometimes longer. There is no onesizefitsall treatment for thrush and I find that different vets and farriers will recommend different treatments.