Thrush - more than 4 letters but still a bad word!

Thrush! The season is coming upon us again... my clothes, tools and car are permeated with the smell of wet/rotting hoof already and we've only had a few rainy days. Unfortunately because we choose to keep horses in the great north "wet" it's a delicate balance to keep our horse's feet thrush free year round... but here are the important factors to make that happen. 

1. Diet. Making sure your horse is getting a low sugar, high fibre diet that it balanced for vitamins and minerals in your area. stay away from anything with added molasses or corn, and make sure your hay is low in starches/sugars. dietary imbalances as well as excess starches/sugars make feet prone to thrush and because it can cause weakening of the lamina, can make horses prone to "white line disease" aka.. thrush in the white line that can travel high up into the hoof capsule and cause persistent cracks and/or abscessing.  

2. Environment. CLEAN... natural dirt/mud doesn't cause thrush.. however mud that is full of manure, hogfuel, wood chips and urine does. Horses who like to stand in their manure/pee spot are very prone to serious thrush infections. Make sure you don't feed where your horse likes to "go" and keep it's main walking/standing areas clean. Using a sand/gravel base for your paddocks or walk ways will help as it drains the urine away better, avoid hogfuel or any wood products, it does nothing good for your horse's feet. It absorbs urine and manure and is in a constant state of "rotting" itself, as well as stays moist even after our weather is dry. If your horse spends a lot of time out in exceptionally wet paddock/pasture areas make sure they have a dry area they can come into so the feet get a chance to dry out. Also... if housing your horses with other farm animals (goats, chickens, ducks, cows, llamas etc) make sure you clean up their poop too! Especially fowl.. as their poop is a mix of poop and pee and is very high in ammonia. Some of the worst thrush I see is with horses who live with chickens. 

3. Exercise! Horses who move around a lot on varied terrain generally have much stronger lamina, soles and frogs which are more resistant to the invasive bacteria. Horses that live on harder, more abrasive surfaces have more callus on the bottoms of their feet that is very resistant to infections. Riding/exercising you horses on harder surfaces like sand, gravel, concrete help keep the feet tougher year round. If your horse has issues with sensitivity on those surfaces, use boots... just the concussion and movement alone promotes healthy strong calluses, so don't avoid those surfaces, just boot up! 

4. Hoof Balance. Of course how the feet look and feel add to the ability to stay healthy. horses with long heels, heel contraction, weak frogs, previous laminitic or navicular issues can make them very prone to thrush in the white line or frog. And in cases of heel contraction, weak frogs or navicular, the heel pain caused by the thrush can actually be the root cause of those problems or exacerbate them because the horse will not want to land on the heels. Making sure the horse is getting good hoof care every 6 weeks to rebalance and create a hoof that the horse will want to land heel first on which will help correct those issues is your first step. If the horse already has thrush, or is at high risk for getting it because of these factors, a routine of cleaning the hoof and applying various topical treatments such as oil of oregano, tea tree oil, (or a mix!), no thrush, MTG ( yup, it works for thrush too!) are all great preventatives, and using them as treatments can work too. Avoid anything you wouldn't put on your own skin! The areas that get thrushy are VERY sensitive, if you wouldn't put it on your own cuts or chapped hands, don't put it on your horse's feet! For exceptionally deep thrush infections in the frog, use a mixture of athletes foot cream and polysporing triple action and use a narrow tipped plastic syringe to get it deep into that crevice. Some horses can be SO sore from the thrush that just picking out their feet can make them flinch or not want to hold their foot up, so be gentle but thorough and try and get whatever treatment you are using into all the nooks and crannies of the frog. 

Good luck, it's an uphill battle this time of year for many of us, but follow those 4 guidelines and you will be ahead of the rest!

Just for some reference, since many people don't know what "thrush" really looks like... here are some examples... good and bad. Many people think of thrush as simply the black smelly stuff that they sometimes pick out around the frog or white line.. but what they often don't notice is the deep crevice that thrush can create in the back of the frog that is extremely painful for the horse. 

Healthy hoof, no signs of thrush anywhere in the hoof. Notice the frog is solid and the center area of the frog is shallow no crevices for bacteria to hide and eat away at the frog. 

These are "winter" hooves... you can see that they are moist from the wet weather, but the soles and frogs are still callused and solid

Here is a hoof of a horse living in a mulch based paddock. He was also suffering from lack of trimming... but you can see that the frog is weak and disintegrating. The wood based paddock is too soft to promote a healthy callus, and the material is eating away at the frog. 

Next is what we see when a horse likes to pee and poop where he eats. The mixture of rotten peed/pooped on hay is completely rotting away his frog and has created a very deep and sensitive central sulcus. This horse also has chronically contracted heels because of the pain from the thrush. The center is deep enough to sink your entire hoof pick into. 

Front

Hind

This is a mare who actually lives in a very clean and dry environment, however years past of improper hoof balance and a chronic thrush infection that didn't receive treatment create this very deep central sulcus and contracted heels. Look for new pics of this hoof in the future! 

Then we get to the worst of the worst. An infection that is so nasty that the tissue bleeds on contact. The hole head of the hoof pick can fit into the frog of this horse, but just the act of trying to clean it out caused the skin to peel and bleed. You can see in the second view that thrush is also feasting on the sole callus causing it to be black and "chalky"... the smell is indescribable. 

But lets end on a positive note.... this hoof belongs to a gelding who had a chronic thrush infection... his frog looked similar to the mare in the 7th photo... but with regular trimming to rebalance the hoof and diligent treatment you can see that the frog is filling in! YOu can see the line of scar tissue into the hairline where the crevice used to go right down into but it filled in with new healthy tissue. 

What do they look like Now?

I realised in my last post that I had no updated photos of what Reannon's hind feet look like now. For all you guys know I was making things up! So here is a photo of what her hinds look like now.

Because she is sickle hocked she has a natural predisposition to have a long toe and under run heel. My job is to keep the break over as far back as I can so that her toes and heels don't get pulled forward and she can move without added stress on the back and hind quarters. 

Why I chose to stay "barefoot"...

I mentioned in my previous post that my mare, Reannon, was my reason for getting into hoof care. Let me elaborate.

In all my years of horse ownership ( which was about 14 or so years, and 5 different horses,  at the time Reannon started having issues) I had always had horses who didn't "need" shoes. I didn't particularly know a lot about hoof pathology or why horses would "need" shoes, I was just happy that I had never had a farrier tell me shoes were necessary until my previously sound barefoot horse started having issues.

What were those issues? Well first it started off as tenderness on the trail, especially any gravel. My little mare would plant her feet and refuse to move if we went on to a gravel path. The next issue was tripping. Along with the tripping, she was chipping and cracking the heck out of her toes. I asked my farrier "why?" this was happening and his response was " Well, some horses just need shoes."

That really wasn't an answer to "why?" in my opinion. That may have been a common solution to the issues I was having, however, I wanted to know why my previously comfortable horse, who had decent feet, was all of a sudden having these problems. So I started to ask around, and thankfully was part of a mailing list at the time where a long time barefoot trimmer, Gwenyth Santagate, was also a member,  and she offered me some REAL answers. Answers that made SENSE!

So what were the real issues? Lack of callus in the sole and frog, a long, underrun heel and toe, and a toe first landing. Why were those things causing those problems? Well... let me tell you!!

1. Reannon was living in a hog fuel (bark mulch essentially) paddock (worst possible footing for horse's feet btw, just DON'T), being ridden in a hog fuel ring, and so her feet were soft and lacked appropriate callus for her to be able to walk comfortably on anything other than soft footing.

2. Because of the lack of callus on the frog, and an under developed frog and heel ( unfortunately due to lack of movement as a young horse) she wasn't comfortable using her heels to land on. So, every step she was taking was on her toes. That creates a whole host of issues that I was unaware of. Each toe first step pulled the hoof capsule forward instead of under the horse so it compounds the issue of lack of support at the back of the foot. Those toe first steps were causing her to trip and chip her toes on hard surfaces because it was distorting a natural/healthy breakover. Each toe first step also bypasses the strengthening of the heel and frog because that area is not getting the proper stimulation, expansion and pressure needed to create and maintain those things. A toe first landing is also very hard the entire horse because the back of the hoof is what is meant to be the biggest shock absorber, and she wasn't using it!  It was a vicious cycle that was just getting worse the longer it was being allowed to continue.

So, I asked my farrier about shortening her toes and trying to get her heels back where they belong. He said "sure" and I hoped we were on our way to her having healthier feet!

But as the months went on... nothing changed. In fact, my normally compliant, eager to please, never put a foot wrong, young mare suddenly started exhibiting back pain! Her loin was tight and sore, her hamstrings were hard as a rock, and she actually started to let out little warning bucks at the canter to let me know she was NOT comfortable.

I asked my mailing list friends again for help and was asked to see photos of her feet. That is when the real light bulb went off for me and I decided with the help of Gwen, to try and help my horse before things progressed any worse.

What was causing this new behavior and why was it related to her feet?

Those are photos of her hind feet. She was exhibiting a negative coffin bone angle. In a healthy hoof, the coffin bone in a stationary horse is usually close to parallel with the ground with the the tip of the coffin bone angled slighting towards the ground. This allows for a parallel position when the horse is moving heel first. Reannon's coffin bone was being forced with the BACK of the coffin bone angled towards the ground. A little visual... green = normal angle, red = her angle (approx...my art isn't a science lol):

This angle was forcing her to stand under herself in order to relieve the leverage on the toe, and of course her movement was being altered for the same reason. Because of those her back and hamstrings were being stretched beyond their limits and becoming VERY sore. 

So what was my plan of action? First... start working on backing up those toes and getting a more natural angle. Second, lots and lots of massage, and time off from any riding so not to stress her already stressed out body any further or create any resentment towards riding because of the pain. 

Because I was just learning the ins and outs of trimming it took me a lot longer, and not such a pretty process to get her feet feeling better, but after 5 months her angles were better, her back was no longer sore, her hamstrings were loose and no more bucking! 

I also moved her somewhere that had a sand footing in the paddock and ring, which helped with conditioning her feet to have a good callus and allowed her to be more comfortable on a variety of trail surfaces. No more stopping on gravel, no more chipping or cracking of toes and no more tripping. 

Getting the answers to my questions, and SEEING the results from using common sense is why I chose"barefoot" and eventually turned to a full time hoof trimmer when I started to see similar issues and questions being left unanswered time and time again. Would putting a horse shoe on my horse made her less tender on gravel? Probably. But that wasn't the real problem, that was a symptom of many problems which would not have gone away with the application of a shoe. Why cover up the problem when you can fix it? 

My mare's story is not an unusual one.. if you are noticed similar issues with your horse and aren't getting the answers you need... keep searching! Your horse will thank you! 

Why Twinkle Toes?

Those who know me, know I'm not a girly girl, far from it. So Twinkle Toes sounds a little out of character for me...

So why Twinkle Toes?

Because of this lovely lady:

That is my 13 year old Andalusian/Arabian mare, Reannon aka Twinkle Toes. When her and I came to be, she was a 2 year old, virtually untouched and full of personality. One of her quirks is that she is absolutely anxious about food and does quite the little performance at feed times. Piaffes, head flips, side leaps, paws, caprioles, and some impressive cutting moves. We had a wonderful old man who used to care take at one of the first barns I kept her at and he quickly named her "Twinkle Toes" because of her dinner dances.

A few years later, Reannon started having hoof issues that I really wasn't getting any good answers or solutions from the traditional farriers who were working on her. With some encouragement and guidance from Gwenyth Santagate  I started trimming her myself and finally got the answers and solutions I was looking for. I credit Reannon for starting me on my journey of barefoot/natural hoof care, and she has been my teacher ever since. I think it's only right to pay tribute to the toes that got me in the business!