Treating thrush - iodine?

[Em 1]

Hew has sheared heels which means he is very susceptible to thrush and infections in his heels. During the summer we managed to keep on top of it but he had a nasty few days of pus and other yuk recently. We've sorted it now with thorough scrubbing, povidone-iodine washes, Fucibet and a course of antibiotics.

To stop it coming back we want to keep up with very dilute iodine washes three or so times a week and here comes my question:

Does anyone know where we can buy a gallon of the stuff from? We've got the little (350ml?) spray but that soon disappears so I wondered if there was any way of buying a big vat of it and diluting it to make a gentle wash?

[Hummond]

Do you a have a Mole Valley farmers store in your area or countrywide store? they may do something like this

http://www.molevalleyfarmers.com/MVF/pages/homepage.jhtml
http://www.countrywidefarmers.co.uk/

[Bay Mare]

Contact Senjj on Enlightened Equitation (http://www.enlightenedequitation.com), she has Cleantrax which is a bit of a faff but, I believe, extremely effective.

[eventerbabe]

Go to your vets and get some pevodine. We got a 750mL bottle of concentrated pevodine from our vets when Bonnie had thrush. you dilute it down something like 3 caps in 500mL so lasts ages. combine it with a cattle foot rot spray and the thrush should be cleared up in no time.

[Santi]

hi, i can say Cleantrax is a faff to do (the horse has to stand in a bag of liquid for 45mins) but it should last longer because it kills not only the active thrush but also the spores, none of the other treatments can do this i think, so you may be forever treating it. Also there is an issue with whether or not there is any death of tissue from a treatment because thrush lives in dead tissue not live - the foot rot spray for sheep is very drying, if you kill any tissue off even at the surface you just create thrush food!

If the iodine doesn't work definately have a go with the Cleantrax.

Poor shoeing can also contribute to contracted heels and if you ride the horse the rubbing between the crack is enough to cause abrasion and more infection again.

[teabiscuit]

hydrogen peroxide has always worked for us, but we've never had a severe case of thrush so not sure how good it would be for severe cases, but excellent for milder cases.

[MelanieD]

Cramming MSM cream (NAF one is best as it's really thick) into the crevice works really well, stops the two sides rubbing against each other and getting sore giving infection a chance to get in, is unfriendly to the bugs that like to make the crevice their home and doesn't damage healthy tissue and give the bugs something to feed on as many other thrush treatments do.