our expertise: VETERINARIAN ADVICE
Dealing with Thrush
Tom Hutchins, DVM, DABVP
Thrush is very common, and it typically is a mild disease
that can be easily treated. It can be prevented with adequate
foot management and good stable husbandry. If you choose
to ignore these preventative measures, or you come into
possession of a horse with thrush, it needs to be addressed
immediately and aggressively as complications and chronic
lameness issues can result. Thrush can be insidious in its
onset and left untreated can result in permanent lameness.
Let’s discuss some descriptive anatomy of the foot to
better understand the problem. When looking at the foot
from the bottom, the hoof wall circles from the outside heel
around the point of the toe and on to the inside heel. The
frog is the rubbery-textured triangle with the flat base at the
heel and the point two-thirds of the distance to the toe.
The remainder of the whitish structure on the bottom of
the foot is the sole. The frog has a central invagination or
groove called the central sulcus, and the deep grooves