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  Discussion on Is it Thrush if Frogs are Dry?
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Member:
ajudson1

Posted on Sunday, Apr 19, 2009 - 9:52 am:

DrO,

Since I started trimming my horses myself, I am much more aware of changes in their hoofs.

Lately I seem to be taking lots of frog off that is loose. We had a very looong winter, the usual wet spring thaw, but it was a short wet spell followed by extreme dry conditions, except by the water tank and under the barn eves where it is mucky yet. (And of course they stand there)

What has me confused is after I clean out the hoofs, and they are in the stalls for anywheres from 2-4 hours, the frogs are then hard and dry.

If they are drying up so quickly, is it thrush then? No smell.

Some frogs are very small at this point, anything I should be doing to help them grow back out?

I am concerned I carved out too much loose stuff.

I have been putting the Betadine on as per the instructions in the article.

Thanks in advance.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Monday, Apr 20, 2009 - 7:18 am:

Thrush is a infection that creates a black smelly goo and frogs that are hard and dry but not cracking sounds healthy to me. If all you are removing is unhealthy horn yet overall your frogs are like you describe I am not sure how you could be removing too much horn but it is hard to judge that from here. Occasionally you see horses that sluff relatively thick slices of frog usually all the way around. This may be what you are having happen. They will grow out again. There is little more you can or need to do beside good nutrition, good environment, and good trimming.
DrO
Member:
ajudson1

Posted on Monday, Apr 20, 2009 - 7:41 am:

Thanks,

No Thrush then! I also checked for ouchiness, and everyone was fine. I'll just keep cleaning daily especially now that we've got rain. Guess the frogs were just very wet from the environmnet.
Member:
jjrichar

Posted on Monday, Apr 20, 2009 - 9:33 am:

Angie, when I have seen thrush it is very foul smelling, the frog is spongy and even may have 'holes' in it. During the wet season, if I notice my horse's frogs getting a little too squishy I go ahead treat with a little of that purple stuff called Thrush Buster or Thrush Bomb mostly as a preventative. The bacteria that causes thrush and seedy toe is very prevalent in our area so I like to be on the safe side.

Like Dr. O said, it sounds like your horse's frogs are healthy. Iodine/Betadine kills the bacteria too, but if it would make you feel better, one treatment of thrushbuster shouldn't hurt anything. Also, a couple of my horses 'shed' their frogs from time to time too. This is completely normal from what I understand.
Member:
mrgood

Posted on Wednesday, Dec 23, 2009 - 4:15 am:

While I was still only working in Sweden (wet conditions) I believed that thrush was a bacterial issue but when I started working more in desert environment (south west corner of the USA) I found that most horses suffered, what I thought was, a different kind of thrush. In Texas (for example) I have found lots of horses with a frog that on the surface looked just fine but further down into the frog (you see it when you cut the flaps covering the collateral grows) there is about 1/8” of fungal infection reaching al the way into the corium. In many cases it was easy to just peel of the nice looking frog surface with my fingers. The smell of fungus was unmistakable. Culturing this infected tissue led us to the Candida theory.
I’m the first one to agree on that this carbohydrate overload theory does not explain the evident fungus infected frogs I found in the Mustang population in the Nevada desert since I have a hard time seeing lots of simple carbohydrates in there wooded feed. If someone can explain that we might come closer to understanding and curing the thrush issue which today affects more than 90% of al domestic horses.
Again, no disrespect but where other people say there is no thrush I usually find the fungal infection and the impaired frog tissue very evident. I have dissected over 100 infected frogs to try to get a better understanding of the thrush issue and my opinion today is that there is no fungal infection of a frog that is only affecting the outer layer but very frequently only affecting the inner layers making is not visible from the outside.

Elevating the unprotected digital cushion inside of an infected frog by raising the heels to reduce the problem with the sensitivity in this tissue is frequently done both by horses and by humans to get the horse to act sound. This does however not make the horse sound but only disguise the real problem. I have really instructive videos from the inside of the hoof showing the effects of raised heels.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Dec 23, 2009 - 10:36 am:

Hello Good Lind,
In the literature you repeatedly you see stated Fusobacterium bacteria is the organism that is almost universally cultured from thrush cases and it is quite odorous. I don't remember seeing Candida as a cultured organism. But culturing alone is not enough to establish cause and effect. In the case of Fusobacterium it has been established that the organism produces keratinolytic enzymes that degrade hoof horn, giving us a mechanism for this etiology for the disease. I would also note that lately we have had several reports of good treatments using topical antibacterials that are unlikely to have much activity against funguses, indeed Candida overgrowth is often a problem where antibacterials are used. That you culture Candida is not surprising or diagnostic for the cause, you can culture hundreds of organisms commonly from healthy normal feet.

Researching this topic I did find that onchomycosis (fungal infections of the nails) in humans has rarely been associated with the isolation of Candida. Taken from the Emedicine site is this explanation of the the finding:
Nail invasion by Candida is not common because the yeast needs an altered immune response as a predisposing factor to be able to penetrate the nails. Despite the frequent isolation of Candida from the proximal nail fold or the subungual space of patients with chronic paronychia or onycholysis, in these patients Candida is only a secondary colonizer.

Could you post a copy of the culture results so we can see what type culturing was done and what other organisms were found?
DrO
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