Hoof fungus

[swim-n-ride]

I am wondering if anyone has experience dealing with hoof fungus. This started as deep crevases in my gelding's heels(below coronet band).  I have been dealing with his contracted hooves for some time, and they have improved some with a good "barefoot" trimmer, but the fungus hit us, probably somewhat due to this condition, but possibly also due to a tear of his coronet band last summer, due to poor shoeing.
Now it is causing skin to peel off the soft tissue of heel bulbs (between frog and coronet band.) It is red and looks awful. I think it must be uncomfortable. He is landing slightly toe first, I am sure it is due to this, so I am not riding him until this is better.
My horse lives in a large pasture which is now covered with a foot or so of snow. I bring him into the barn each evening and clean his hooves out with a 50/50 lysol/water mix, and let that dry. Then I fill all the holes and cracks with a 50/50 mix of triple antibiotic and 1% chlortrimazole(spelling?). I read about this on Pete Ramey's site on natural hoof care.
I am not feeling too confident about being able to get rid of the fungus witht the constant standing in the snow. The herd he is living with walks around their acreage a lot, despite the snow, so he is getting lots of movement. I really don't want to have to stall him, though I have the option of using a 12 x 24 matted stall, if I need to.

Does anyone know if the fungus spores survive well in the snow, or if I will be fighting a never ending battle if I don't keep him in a dry stall?
I am going to order some "Clean Trax" to treat him with, it doesn't appear to be available locally.

Any words of wisdom from those of you with experience in this awful condition, would be much appreciated!

Interesting coincidence:
For many, many months, my horse has been fussy about having his hooves picked out, despite it  being a daily acitivity. Since  this fungus has made it's presence well known, I trimmed off all the loose frog tissue, during which my gelding fell asleep! So, this must have been bothering him for longer than it has looked so bad, if that makes any sense!

[maz]

a mild blleach solution  in  a spray bottle,  careful of your clothes.  clean  feet an spray a couple days iti will go away

[Roze]

If it's truly a fungus you want to work on getting the area dry. Make sure that he's not turned out in wet conditions, if he's in snow and it can never dry out it will not heal, I'd keep him in two or three days and then maybe do a half day of turnout until it heals up. I don't know that the antibiotic oinment is the best thing. For a hoof fungus I've heard the product Clean Trax works really well to clean it out. You may also want to try an athlete's foot spray, it works wonders on fungus. There are also many other fungicides out there. You can scrub it with a betadine scrub that works really well too. Good luck.

[swim-n-ride]

Thanks for the helpful info. The stuff I am mixing with the antibiotic ointment is a strong athlete's foot cream, for fungal infections. But, your idea of just a short time in the stall with decreasing stall time seems like it may be manageable. I just don't see how it can heal well when it is covered in snow 24/7. But, I can't stand the thought of long term stall time.

Maz, does the bleach mix hurt the red, peeling areas? Will it kill any good tissue?

Thanks!

[maz]

i use it for hoof sole and rain rot and scratches. 1 cup to gallon ratio doesn't  sting,  never knew it to hurt.

[shiloh04]

I had an icky fungal crud in my mare's hooves over the summer, and nothing I used seemed to work.  I did finally manage to get rid of it and thus far it hasn't come back.

What I did was bought some hoof boots (EasyBoot Bares was my choice).  I got some Grapefruit seed extract online and I picked out her feet daily, poured the GSE on them, and packed cotton balls into the crevices around her frog.  At first I had to wrap it with vetwrap to keep the cotton balls in, btu after a while I got good at putting the boots on without the vetwrap while keeping the cotton balls in place.  I also used baby powder in the boots to absorb moisture.  about 2 weeks of doing this daily cleared it up.

I only left the boots on for half the day to keep a lot of moisture from building up, but I would reapply the GSE when I took them off.

Once she grew a frog and the fungus left, I was able to lower her heels enough to keep it from coming back.  Making sure the bars are kept down also helps keep manure and such from packing in and causing more issues.

[ponygirl]

Your absolute best bet if cleantrax.

I did the same solution you are using & it is just topical it does not kill the spores which is what you have to kill. Cleantrax will not damage healty tissue as ALL the other solutions will. Fungus feeds on dead tissue created by the damage done by bleach & lysol & the rest. The triple anitbotic & the anitfungal cream will not kill the spores.

You have to also treat the stalls, the trimming area, the tools that are being used to trim or you risk reinfection.

Here is a link to the article that explains how clean trax works, the founder Al Fox is great about returning phone calls & explaining the details as well. Description of CleanTrax by Al Fox of Equine Technologies

http://www.ericnystrom.com/cleantrax.html

In the end although it appears time consuming & costly it is a lot more effective and a lot less expensive than what you are paying for the triple antibotic & antifungal. I tried that route but, changed to this one.

99% of horse respond with only one soaking, YOU MUST DO IT RIGHT. There is a diagram showing you how to do it, the boots must also be left on for 45 minutes after the soak.....It takes about 2 1/2 hours to complete but well worth it.

Good luck!!!!!!! I am about 4 weeks out but did not treat stalls or trimming area so I am going to do it again & treat all of the areas the spores may have remained.

[Fadtastic]

You might try Royal Oil, it sure has helped my mare.
They will send a sample for only $5.00
Kris

[swim-n-ride]

I did use CleanTrax, and my trimmer saw much improvement, but my boy is still landing slightly toe first on the front, so I am going to repeat the treatment. He was a very patient boy and actually enjoyed all the attention for the long time it took to treat all 4 hooves!
But, I think it is much easier than trying to do lysol soaks several times a week for several weeks!

He has great concavity, and thick walls, but those heels just won't de-contract, and so my trimmer thinks he may just have had a deep infection lingering for a long time.
Thanks for all the input!