WLD: fungi or bacteria?

[teabiscuit]

is WLD caused by a bacteria or a fungi does anyone know?

thanks :)

[MelanieD]

Mixture of anaerobic buggy ming :) Probably should be ashamed of myself calling it that when I'm meant to be a science geek :) Its usually a mixture of nasties, what exactly depends on what's present in the soil in that area. Can have bacteria, fungus and yeast type nasties and generally a mixed population of the little b*ggers.

[teabiscuit]

thanks MelanieD.
the reason i asked was that I am thinking of trying oxytetracycline spray on WLD, to see if that helps knock it on the head

is that a rubbish idea or not?
:confused:

[MelanieD]

Might work, never tried it, guess it'd depend on what bugs exactly are lurking. Have you tried milton? I've not yet seen frog ming that milton can't cause pain to :)

[teabiscuit]

I've tried borax, hydrogen peroxide (the devils potion), and now oxytetracycline :rolleyes: i've grown to loathe WLD with a passion LOL

problem is he's out 24/7 and during the week i'm not able to bring him in and give the foot a good "do" like i can at weekends.

i need something quick and easy that i can do outside while he eats his feed

how is the milton treatment administered?
is it a weekend treatment, like borax, soaking for 10 to 15 min?

[MelanieD]

You can use it to soak once a week, then it would help to stuff MSM cream into any crevices so that new ming takes a bit longer to be able to get in there. Or quick pick out and scrub every 2-3 days. I use diluted own brand baby sterilisers, 1 'milton' to 2 water for scrubbing. Would dilute a bit more for soaking.

[teabiscuit]

thanks Melanie
i've been told that cleantrax is good for stubborn cases, and this is proving stubborn as a mule. so....
can i ask you a daft cleantrax question,

i've got a link to a website selling the stuff, and it gives a price per bottle, do you use 1 bottle per foot?


and does it really only take 1 treatment? 1 treatment and the WLD is killed forever? *she says hopefully*

[MelanieD]

Clean trax is really good, I used it on Roxy a few years ago when she had a deep and evil case of WLD. It does kill everything very nicely but you do have to do the occasional scrub or soak with something else afterwards for a little while to prevent re-infection while any damaged horn grows out.

One bottles makes a (american) gallon of solution which you need a special soaking boot for or get creative making one, its the pressure of that much volume that gets it deep into the foot to kill all nasties off. You need to soak for 45 mins per foot and the solution is active for 90 mins so you can use one bottle to do 2 feet.

If you're having really persistent problems with WLD then its worth looking at diet since there will always be some ming in need of killing off if the diet isn't right and a little bit of low grade laminitis is giving damaged white line for the little b*ggers to feed on.

[teabiscuit]

thanks for the info :) i appreciate it

[Roofio]

i've cleantraxed and now use antibac hoof disinfectant a few times a month to keep on top of his WLD.

cleantrax is a hassle but worth it long term.