The ongoing thrush battle!

[Sophieandbella]

So my mare had thrush in the summer quite badly, the central sulcus was affected and opened up into a crack on two feet. After many different remedies I got on top.of it with Iodine and then started a chalk type mineral powder twice a week. No black pus and the central cracks seemed to be knitting together nicely.
Obviously the weather has been crap lately and everywhere is muddy. Her feet seemed ok, no black gunge and I've been doing the chalk powder twice a week as a preventative, but now one of her feet has the central crack back again.
It's so frustrating, I just can't ever seem to get on top of it. Do I look at her diet? Or something else as an underlying cause?
She's barefoot btw, trimmed every 6w, trimmer says she has excellent strong feet. She lives out 24/7 never stabled although unfortunately field is quite muddy at the min. She has ad lib hay atm (grass in the summer) and then has a very small feed of a handful of chaff just to mix her balancer (D&H vitamins and minerals) into.
If anyone has any suggestions I'd be really grateful. Thanks

 

[newforest]

As you had issues back in the summer that you say cleared up, but have come back - I would think it didn't fully go in the beginning.
Iodine would be my go to after the trimmer has removed the dead tissue.
However I would be calling the vet now since this is ongoing.

 

[carthorse]

Like @newforest I suspect it never really went away, just improved to a degree that it wasn't noticeable from the outside.

I would say you're going to need somewhere to stable her on a scrupulously clean dry bed to clear this up, you aren't going to do it when she's standing in an ideal breeding ground all the time. You also need your trimmer to trim back the dead and infected tissue and to do that you may need a vet and sedation if the thrush is making her sore. If this approach doesn't work then you need a vet more fully involved since there may be more than thrush going on. You really must get her out of the wet and mud though, if you don't it's only going to get worse.

 

[Jessey]

Id just get some red horse field paste, it’s meant to be applied weekly but I’d do it every other day until you get on top of it. I’ve had great success with this with horses living out throughout.

 

[Sophieandbella]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Yes I think it never really went away but because there's no black pus it wasnt so obvious. Unfortunately stabling her isn't really an option, well not without moving yards! Plus she's never been stabled either. I have fenced off the boggiest part of the field and put some woodchip down where they stand to eat hay.
Trimmer is coming out on 28th anyway but I am also going to ring the vets tomorrow too.
And thanks for the recommendation for the field paste, I've tried a few products so far but not that one so I'll check it out