Got Stinky Hooves? You’ve Probably Got Thrush

By Sarah Gee
©Voice, July 2007

Do your horse’s hooves stink? Well, if they do, he’s probably contracted thrush, a frog-eating bacterium. Thrush, which is easy to detect when cleaning your horse’s hooves, manifests as a black, sometimes oozing, fungal infection that emits a foul odor. Although it most commonly affects the grooves on either side of the frog and the center of the frog, in severe cases it can invade the white line and even the sole. While it is not life threatening, it can cause the hoof to become sore.

It can be said that where there’s horses, there’s also thrush. Thrush bacteria are almost always present in the soil, whether in the barn or in the pasture. Bacteria counts may rise and fall depending on the dampness of the soil and the presence of urine and manure. Nasty little organisms that they are, thrush bacteria thrive in wet and dirty conditions. They absolutely love the warm, dark, moist environment found in the bottom of your horse’s hoof.

The first step in lessening the likelihood that your horse will contract a serious case of thrush is to clean his hooves regularly. Thrush is anaerobic, meaning that it cannot survive when exposed to oxygen. Picking out your horse’s feet allows oxygen to get to the grooves on either side of the frog and to the frog itself. Regularly picking out your horse’s feet will also allow you to catch a mild case of thrush early and act accordingly.

Treating thrush is relatively simple. The first thing to do is to call your farrier so that he can thoroughly clean and trim your horse’s hooves. Next you’ll want to treat the affected areas of the hoof. Treatment options include over the counter thrush remedies, which can be fairly pricey, iodine, povidone-iodine (Betadine), or a homemade remedy called sugardine (a thin paste made by combining white table sugar and povidone-iodine). With whichever treatment you choose, the most important thing is to get that treatment deep into all of the cracks and clefts of the frog. To do this you’ll need to apply the treatment with some sort of swab (wrapping cotton around a stick of hoof pick usually does the trick).