Gun Dog Forum

Alot of horses in the south and east coast regions I have seen and worked on usually at some point or another come down with thrush. After trying everything on the market to treat this anaerobic bacteria which can and will cause severe lameness and contracted feet, I have found a product that is actually made for mastitis treatment in mares and cattle is is called Hetacin K it comes in a syringe and can be inserted directly into the voids and ulcers caused by thrush I generally treat it every other day until symptoms subside and it usually does not take long, have your farrier trim away any loose or deteched frog so as not to collect and hold bacteria then treat with Hetacin K and leave the purple stuff and copper tox to the old timers who seem to think they work! The best part is that you get it from the vet and if you are charged more than 4.00 a tube call me and give me your address my vet sells it for like $3 a tube I buy it buy the case 12 tubes for $36.

I am using it here to treat a ulcerated abscess to control any secondary infection after I resected the hoof capsule:

One of the biggest things that I find with horses that get thrush is that their owners don't clean their hooves out enough.
When I had horses I cleaned them out on a daily basis and they never got thrush. I also made sure that they had a good area with plenty of drainage for shelter when it rained. Or they had a clean stall in the winter.

WOW! Good to know! I just got through figuring out an issue on a Thoroughbred we have. Two weeks of lameness and finally I was proven right! We tried everything and was told it couldn't be an abscess. Well, it finally blew! Every time I soaked it he could walk, let it dry and he was lame. Wrapped the heck out of it for more than a few days and it finally popped! Simple and fresh cases of thrush I usually use bleach. Durrasole as well on the TB. Thankfully I've never had a horse develop a bad case. When your in the south it's easy to get!

AP that looks disgusting, how long until that horse is normal and usuable?

BTW I think you should do this every other week or so, I have only owned one horse, and dont currently have one at all but I will be getting another in the future, people like me need tips like this.

Man that is one nasty looking hoof.

Actually, I seem to be having pretty good luck with Thrush Buster. My farrier recommended it over several other preps and an application every week or two seems to keep the horse's frogs from getting eaten up by thrush. This summer, particularly this August, has been fairly wet here on the Delmarva, so the conditions for thrush are pretty ideal. I do their hooves about every few days and only noticed the start of thrush only once this year on one hoof. That was a big improvement over past years when I was using things like Koppertox.

When I lived in NJ, the farrier at the stable I boarded at was using a mastitis treatment product in a syringe. It was also a penicillin based product, but I cannot recall which one. He said he was having real good luck with it as well and the"pasture" boarded horses at that facility were in mud much of the wintertime, so hoof problems were always an issue. I know that in the two and a half years my horse was there he did not have any hoof issues, despite less than ideal conditions.

RayG