When I bought Rio one of the things I loved about this horse is that he was uncomplicated.... healthy, sound, sane, no vices, no outrageous behavior issues that weren't easily fixable... NO issues aside from simply being green!
In the last six months we've had a lot of changes and with that change has come dreaded foot issues!
In Georgia Rio was on pasture 24/7 with good green grass on close to 100 acres. We had a superb farrier that I loved... shout out to Rob if he happens to be reading this... and we never had feet issues. Once in the six years I was there he had a hoof abscess that cleared up on its on less then 5 days. He's never worn shoes in his life.
I'm not as lucky in Central Florida. Pasture is non existent. For a while I tried self care at one place, but between the rocky footing in the rings, and the constant flooding during rainy season it was a constant battle to keep Rio in good shape. Never mind the fact that finding a truly good farrier is next to impossible.
So I moved him to a smaller lower key facility on full care board. The owners and the other boarders at the barn are amazing, wonderful, sweet people who care about the horses. But, that doesn't make up for the effect a change in the environment has had on his feet. No grass means standing in mud when it rains. Being stalled and confined to a smaller space means that no matter how much cleaning they or I do he is standing in urine or poo at least some of the time instead of on clean dry grass covered footing... we all have real work and can't pick the stall ever 2 hours! The barns that have full time staff there all day charge almost as much as I pay in rent every month for a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house... that is just not doable! Laura (a fellow boarder) and I were joking that it would be a lot easier if we could teach the horses to pee and poop in a bucket. Alas that is never going to happen! My too smart for his own good horse does go in his stall to poop or pee on purpose rather then go outside! No helping the situation...Frustrating!
Anyways, the point of all this is that we started out with an abscess that I'm convinced was a result of how his prior farrier had been trimming him... change in farrier and 5 months of soaking, packing, and slaving over his feet and we are now out of the woods with the abscess... but not out of the woods with his feet. If its not one thing its another and NOW we have thrush. It comes and goes depending on how often I can get to the barn to treat the problem and do my own cleaning, and depending on the weather... Luckily its not severe enough to cause lameness, but it is irritating because obviously if it gets out of control it can cause all sorts of other problems for him. Medications are getting expensive so at this point I'm ready to try anything!
Enter Cowboy Magic!
They have a new product (Krudbuster Thrush Killer) that they want 100 horses to test out before it goes on market for the general public. OK... I'll bight... So I have 2 free bottles of this stuff and we are going to give it a go! I'll be chronicling it here for anyone who wants to see if the product works! We'll be starting with it Monday after my family leaves town so that I can be consistent with the treatment.
In the interest of keeping this blog from growing any longer... for those interested in reading up on Thrush and what it is do a google search for "The Horse.com Thrush in Horses". Click on the link to the PDF that will be the first thing that pops up. Its a good, short basic article. If I have time I'll expand on it here at some point.
For those who want to know more about the product I'm trying out go here: http://www.cowboymagic.com/products-thrush-killer.html
Follow ups with pictures to come! If you've had a horse with thrush or hoof problems I would love to know what treatments have been successful for you, and more so, what you do to sucessfully prevent it from coming back, outside of the obvious which is cleaning the feet and keeping the living space as clean as possible? Please share if you have a minute.... don't want to post here... you can always e-mail me at MJAppaloosa@gmail.com
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