Solo's feet hate moisture & they've definitely gotten more finicky with age. I've never had a case of full-blown thrush in the past, it's mostly just been a "things are looking mushy & threatening" kind of vibe. I was usually able to clear things up with a short course of Thrushbuster. In the past year or so, however, I've been losing the battle.
His front feet are the problem children & he developed some pretty deep sulcus splits in both frogs, out of which I started getting some smelly not-goodness. The Thrushbuster was having little to no effect & Dr. Bob told me that all those thrushy micro-organisms can & do develop a resistance to iodine. It was time to set out on a quest for something new.
 |
| Solo's big crack. Yeah, I crack myself up. TWO CRACK JOKES! |
I proceeded to read the ingredient list & reviews of every thrush product ever formulated, searching for something non-iodine, but demonstrating real effectiveness without requiring long soaking or specialized boots. Funny side story & spoiler alert: I ended up at one of the same conclusions as L. Williams, who wrote up
a great account of her experience recently!
The Winner
After extensive reading, I decided to try
Pure Sole Hoof Mud. I'm always a little hesitant about things that scream "ALL NATURAL FROOFY" or whatnot, that sound like someone just concocts it in their basement & then sells their placebo for a bunch of money. However, one of the primary ingredients is apple cider vinegar, which is an acid with well-documented effectiveness against thrush, along with zinc oxide, which is a good moisture barrier.
It's extremely easy to use. I love that I don't need gloves & it doesn't make me all sticky or dye me purple. It has a perfect, dry clay consistency so you can pack it in to cracks & crevices easily. I kneaded it deep into those sulci, where it generally stayed for about 24 hours or so. I've been using it in nasty mud & wetness with no issues. When the horse puts his foot down, the clay just gets shoved deeper in there.
 |
| Just brushes off my fingers when I'm done |
Even better, IT WORKED. I applied it daily for a few weeks, although that may have been overkill with the acid, because I did see a little frog degradation. But no more stinky funk. I backed off to using it once every few days, more often if it's rainy, just in the crevices as a preventative.
 |
| After packing |
I bought the smaller tub & have used probably 95% of it in
1.5 months, but it will take a little while to use up the last 5% now that I'm using less of it less often. I did already get a new big tub, so now I'm prepared for the microbial apocalypse. The clay itself seems very stable, the consistency has been the same whether it's warm or cold & it's definitely been out in the shed when it's 20F.
The only thing it didn't succeed at was sticking to the outside of the hoof wall or white line. I wanted to see if it would help Echo's toe that is prone to separation, but the clay won't stick to that by itself, it falls off or gets rubbed off in about 4 seconds. But for areas in & around the frog, worked great.
Two hooves up from us (
technically eight, because I did put it on some other spots on Echo's feet too).
I'm adding a link to this post at the bottom of mine. I'm currently trying to get my local tack store to stock this stuff lol
ReplyDeleteGo for it! It should be right up the hippie-California alley for your area, it even has flowers on the ingredient list!
DeleteWell coolness! I've been seeing ads for this stuff and thinking about getting some to add to my hoof kit, but wasn't at all sure if it worked. Thanks for the info & review :) I do hope Mr. Shiney's tootsies continue to improve.
ReplyDeleteI vote definitely add -- there were a large number of positive reviews on several sites from other people that sounded like they also got real results with tough cases.
DeleteMy trimmer uses that and it seems to work really well. My other go-to is Today (for mastitis), which has a great applicator tip that lets you cram it in EVERYWHERE, and then packing with gauze. Mud sounds a bit easier though!
ReplyDeleteMy farrier & vet both like the cow stuff too, I have not tried it because it's expensive (at least here), but if I had a big, serious thrush issue that wasn't responding to the mud, I would definitely give a shot.
Deleteooh thanks for sharing! my horse's feet are basically rotting off right now thanks to all the moisture, barf....
ReplyDeleteanother thing one of my coaches recommended was coat defense. apparently you can put the powder directly onto the frog itself too?
I hope it can help you with foot-rotting! I have never heard that about coat defense. I guess it would depend on the active ingredient. But then how would the powder stick?
DeletePure Sole user here too! Thrushbuster quit working, the "No Thrush" thrush-powder crap didn't work too well, and I gave up on the Absorbine almost immediately (it did nothing). Diluted bleach was drying everything out (which, "yay!" but also, "nay!" as it was killing off good tissue. I tried "Today" or "Tomorrow" - the bovine mastitis treatment, and while I think it did help for the deep sulcus, what really kept us moving in the right direction was the Pure Sole. I have nothing but praise for it - it has cleared up all of her thrush. I do it once every other day or when I can no longer smell it in her heels.
ReplyDeleteWent through the small tub and now am on the big tub. I don't think I'll go through it nearly as quickly but I'm being fairly liberal with it - I never ever ever want to deal with thrush this bad again.
Wow, you tried them all! Thanks so much for sharing, that's really helpful! Thrush is nasty, indeed -- I suspect microbes can develop resistance to the Pure Sole ingredients too, but I'm really glad to have another option for now.
Delete