Thrush update

It's been a while since I've posted pictures but it's been a while since I felt like their frogs were post-worthy. If you recall I first was alerted to Coriander's ridiculously awful thrush infection last November and I've been treating him for it ever since. At the same time Gwen was also afflicted. We've had some ups and downs and a whole lot more learnin' on my part about foot health, nutrition, and thrush remedies since then.

These photos are from yesterday. Yeah, the trim looks not so great- I've still got a bunch to learn about how to use my tools (I'm going to trimming school in August, YAY!)- but my horses are sound and soundness is more important than looks. You can see that Coriander has still been landing toe first and has been pulling the front of his feet forward. It's been driving me crazy. I'd pull his toe back and he'd just pull it forward again by slamming down toe first. Finally, *finally*, as his frogs have come in he's started to land heel first most of the time.

Coriander's left fore- the clubbed one

Coriander's right fore

If it looks like his heels are high keep in mind that his frogs are still growing in, making it look like his heels are taller than they are. Though I do have an interesting (shameful) story about how I learned why Coriander has a club foot. I had been easing the heels on that club foot down the to same height as the heels on his right fore. Well guess what? When I finally got the heels down to the same height he went lame. I happened to be perusing the internet looking for something else when I found a farrier who talked about assessing the horse's entire body balance for soundness. He specifically mentioned looking at how the knees lined up. I went out and looked at Coriander's knees and - Lo And Behold!- his left knee was a 1/4 inch lower than his right knee. Whoops! I guess his left foot is clubbed because his left leg is shorter. Good to know.

And here are Gwen's feet. Note that she still has a crack down the middle of her frog. Her frogs don't look as good as Coriander's for one reason: He'll let me soak his feet and she won't. For that reason I've had to change my treatment tactics. I got a spray bottle, filled it with a 40:60 oxine to water ratio, and started spraying their frogs with that every day to every other day. I started doing that three weeks ago and can already see improvement. The crack between her heels is starting to fill in nicely. Other interesting things are starting to happen as a result of the spraying too- like the ditch around Coriander's left fore frog. It seems the tip of that frog wasn't healthy so now it's gone. Fascinating.

Gwen's right fore

Gwen's left fore

I want to note that even though her frogs still look thrushy she's sounder than her brother, a true rock cruncher. For a while I didn't understand why until I took a closer look at the back of their feet. Take a look at how much more robust the back of her foot, or the digital cushion, looks compared to Coriander's. I don't know if she got more exercise when she was a baby than he did or if there's a genetic factor going on but the difference is huge. Either way, I've got my fingers crossed that someday the back of his feet will look that robust.

Something else I want to add about thrush:

I trimmed my client horse this week and was dismayed to hear the owner tell me she'd stopped treating his thrush "since it's been dry." Um no. Whether it's wet or dry doesn't really make a difference. If your horse has thrush you need to treat it until it's gone. Period. That might take months but you have to persevere and keep after it despite the environmental conditions. I also told her she needs to get him on a mineral supplement to assist his grass diet. There simply aren't enough minerals in the forage around here to produce healthy hooves. I've come to learn that when it comes to thrush, what goes in the horse's mouth is just as, if not more, important as what you put on their feet.