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  Discussion on Thrush
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Member:
Danny

Posted on Tuesday, Dec 9, 2003 - 9:08 pm:

Hello,

I have a warmblood that has just returned to our barn from being turned out to pasture for the last year and a half recuperating from a subluxated sacrum. When he shipped back in he seemed sore in his front feet. I picked up his feet to look at them and found the worst case of thrush I have ever seen. He had very large deep clefts in his frogs(you could stuff three or four cotton balls in there), the bulbs of his heels were very soft, mushy, crumbling, and bled a little and seemed to oose black crud. The clefts went all the way past his frogs into the coronet band of his heels.

I called the vet out and he concurred that the horse had bad thrush. He said that horses can get thrush just from standing in damp grass for extended periods of time. I guess that's what happened. He told me not to use the typical things..iodine, thrushbuster, etc, because he said they would be too caustic in this particular case. He prescribed procaine penicillin to be applied much the same way the other stuff is used, two times daily for the first three weeks, then once a day for the next two weeks, and gradually tapering off in the weeks following. After applying the meds...his feet were kept packed with cotton.

It has been around 5 weeks now since I began treating this horse. The thrush seems to be gone. He is still getting the penicillin treatment once a day. I get no more black discharge or any foul smelling gunk, and he is no longer bleeding. He still has giant deep clefts in his frogs that go all the way up the back of his heels into the coronet line. His heels(bulbs of his heels) still seem soft and crumbly. Will the clefts eventually fill and heal or am I missing something in terms of caring for this horse properly that could result in a permanent problem? The clefts of his feet just don't seem to be filling with new horn yet. I have never dealt with such a severe case of thrush, but in the past any horse I've ever treated begins to repair with treatment. I don't see any filling of new hoof material yet.

I don't know if this makes a difference in the horse being able to get better or not, but this is a horse that is on egg bar shoes. Could that be contributing to his problem too? I am able to get to the areas to treat them pretty well though.

Thanks...Debra
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Dec 11, 2003 - 7:21 am:

Hello Debra,
It sounds like your horse's heels may have become contracted. This results in a "folding in" of the central sulcus and a deep cleft forming. To assess this you look at the distance between the bulbs of the heels. We have a article on this at, \i» Equine Diseases » Lameness » Diseases of the Hoof » Contracted Heels}.
DrO
Member:
Danny

Posted on Friday, Dec 12, 2003 - 2:00 pm:

DrO,

This is a huge and heavy warmblood(17.2), who is low in the heels. He has been on bar shoes to provide him with more support. He cannot go without shoes. While he was turned out to pasture(for a year and a half) recoving from injury to his sacrum we pulled his shoes. He developed severe abscesses and bruising from standing on the roots of trees...so we had to put him back on the bar shoes with rim pads. Before being turned out for so long, he never had any problems with thrush and never had clefts in his frogs that ran all the way back through his heels to his coronet band. he never had any clefts at all. He was on Bar shoes before the lay off. Apparently no one noticed the condition of his feet until we got him back here just recently. Could bar shoes cause contracted heels? Could the wrong size of shoe cause contracted heels? I thought the shoes he came back from lay off with appeared a bit too small. What kind of shoeing would you recommend for a horse that is low heeled, needs to wear shoes, but also might have contracted heels?

Thanks once again for your opinions...Debra
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Saturday, Dec 13, 2003 - 9:22 am:

Contracted heels usually come from decrease weight bearing on the heels. Commonly steep heel wedges and/or chronic heel pain are the cause of contracted heels.

We have a horse like this and we just use a regular shoe but we reset every 6 weeks and make sure they fit well. If your horses heels are very sensitive and bother him when you ride you could use a bar or egg bar to protect the heel region.
DrO
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