If you've been around horses for any extended amount of time, you've learned a thing or two about their needs, their ailments, and how downright expensive these animals can really be sometimes. One thing that almost everyone familiar with horses has either experienced or at least heard of before is thrush. But did you know that sometimes thrush isn't as obvious as you think it is? It's not all about a rotten frog and rotten craters besides the frog in the collateral grove....It's not ALL about that distinct rotting flesh smell. Sometimes it can be really severe but really subtle at the same time. And extremely painful.
Maxwell has had his fair share of foot whoas...I've not even owned the horse a year and we're on our third (and hopefully last!) farrier. But overall his feet aren't the worst, that's for sure, and now that they're on track, it's much easier to keep them healthy. But he HAS struggled with deep sulcus thrush for several months now. We live in Florida. It's almost inevitable that at some point or another, you're going to be dealing with some infected thrushy feet. The severe dry-wet cycle that gulf coast of Florida weather brings us in the Summer will surly keep you on your feet when it comes to horse foot and leg care. Anyhow, in Maxwell's case, he developed this nasty deep sulcus thrush because his right hoof was wrapped for about a month's time in the deep humid moist summer we had this past year. He was battling a monster of a summer sore right at the coronet band (look way back on my posts for some lovely photos of that) which required constant sanitizing and wrapping to prevent a reinfection (thanks, fly larvae!). The easiest and most functional way for me to keep a wound on his coronet band covered was to wrap his entire hoof. I tried to leave at least part of the sole of his foot exposed for some ventilation, but his heel bulbs were completely covered by the vet wrap.
To the left is what a healthy foot and frog look like. The central sulcus of the frog is that little thumb print indentation that the line points to.
My horse's cause of the thrush was due to the constant wrapping and exposure to moisture. It was kind of inevitable because it wasn't something I could change until wrapping was no longer required. Little did I know that the months I spent treating it conventionally could have been cut down to weeks if I had gone the cheaper, alternative route from the beginning.
My farrier at the time swore by Thrush Buster. I went through 3 bottles from August to Christmas. He had me putting it on every little blemish in Max's hoof wall and white line to help keep all the crud that can turn into anything, from getting through. It's been said that the Gentian Violet in the Thrush Buster has some medicinal effects on all things hoof microbial. I didn't discount his claims, and I applied the stuff religiously to both the clefts around the frog, any off looking spot of his hoof both sole and wall, and deep into that sulcus to try and eradicate the infection within. This stuff just wasn't cutting it. Not to mention, it's purple and purple sucks to get out of anything.
The only reason I even tried No Thrush was because my local Tractor Supply doesn't carry Thrush Buster and I was out of any and all thrush treatments. The idea of a "dry" thrush treatment sounds great. It's one of the fundamentals of getting rid of thrush in the first place, removing all moisture. The idea is there, and I think even the formula is good, too, however, application is a little dodgy. Powder doesn't sit well where you need it to on a dry surface. The moment Max put his foot down at least half of what I had just applied came flying out with it onto the concrete.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and be truthful (seriously, I'm always truthful, I just used that line because it sounded good)....I had known about a potential "cure" for quite some time at this point, but I just wasn't buying what was being sold to me...The idea was there, the first-hand testimonials (my favorite reference on a product!) were there, but yet, I hadn't purchased the miracle cure...Why? Because my Tractor Supply only sold the HUGE quantity at $40 a box. Clearly that's not a frugal and effective way to treat thrush.......
HUH????? What the heck is this stuff???? Dry Cow Mastitis treatment???? If you've only ever delved in Horses, this might be foreign to you. Mastitis in cows is an inflammation of the udders often caused by an infection from various organisms. This nifty little tube (with a flexible long delivery tube on the end!) contains Cephaperin Benzathine which is a bactericidal that helps eradicate gram-positive and gram-negative organisms, giving it a broad range of working ability. Some genius realized that some of the organisms that cause thrush were also affected by this bactericidal and started squirting it on their horse's severe thrush.
I wouldn't break out the Tomorrow at every sign of thrush, that's only going to decrease it's effectiveness over time, but for a stubborn case or a more severe infection in the case of deep central sulcus thrush, this medication is paramount. I kick myself for waiting so long to try it. My local Tractor Supply only sells this in a box, full of them. We all hope to never need a full box of this stuff to treat thrush, especially on a single horse. So I kept putting it off, until I took a quick stroll through the Cow aisle at my local non-tractor supply feed store and saw that they sold it by the tube! $2.99 later, and Maxwell's deep sulcus thrush is healing beautifully. I've actually gone back and bought two more tubes, because the problem isn't completely gone, but we're getting there and this stuff is showing MAD improvements over thrush remedies past. It's important to realize there is a similar product called "Today"....This is for the cow that is lactating and contains a different set of medications, if I had to guess, to keep the milk from being tainted with antibiotic type contaminants (speculating here, I'm not a dairy farmer nor do I play one on tv). I can't comment on it's effectiveness, and research online hasn't given me any result with it, so just stick with getting the "Tomorrow" medication, labeled for a DRY cow (a cow not producing milk).
Moral of the story is....check the cow aisle before turning your back on a treatment. I didn't want to spend $40 on a box of this stuff when many traditional treatments are under $20. Turns out, at $2.99 I could have possibly completely eliminated this problem before it got to the point it did, had I done a wee bit more research and found that I could buy it by the tube somewhere else! You live and learn! But the point here is, even if it were in fact $40, the amount of money I spent between 3 bottles of thrush buster and a bottle of No Thrush would have bought me that $40 box of Tomorrow anyway.
I've still got my No Thrush and Thrush Buster in my groom bag. No thrush goes on after I've applied Tomorrow deeply into the crack. It does a nice job of holding the liquid in. I also poof it around Max's frog and over top of it to help keep everything dry, healthy and happy. Thrush Buster still gets applied to some funky looking spots as they come up, and all is right in the world of hooves around here. Seriously, save the $16 and go buy a tube of this stuff if you're battling something rank in the hoof. Save the traditional medications for maintenance treatments and mild cases. Bring in the big guns like this when you're having trouble or have a bad case going on. You'll thank me. I promise!
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