I recently purchased a horse and don’t know much about its history or worming. I just wormed 3 days ago with Equimax with and the manure has alot of bots in it. She came from Amish and they don’t usually worm for bots. Has anyone else had a horse infested with them and is there anything else that you were told to do in addition to worming? I’m concerned about the toll it has taken on her gut and if I should do anything for supportive care. Someone told me that where they were attached to the gut can cause ulcers where they detach but I don’t know if that’s correct. Thanks
Seeing them means the ivermectin is doing its job. You’re definitely not alone in seeing that!
It’s possible that there could be some stomach upset where they might have been attached. You can feed some alfalfa, or some Purina Outlast, or Triple Crown Stress Free, to help buffer the stomach acid for a few weeks just in case. If I were to choose, I’d choose one of the last 2.
Thanks! In all my years of owning horses including having anywhere from 2 to 4 here at home I’ve never seen this! Having no real health history on the horse I’ve done vaccs, teeth, a month of ulcer treatment (no scoping, but given her past) and removing the 4 barium laden shoes. Egad
Use ivermectin as it has documented efficacy against both oral and gastric stages. Botfly larvae are extremely common in horses. I saw an article on top horse wormers with their reviews and I’ll recommend you to read it once.
I don’t do fecal. I worm every spring and fall after a hard frost. In my 24 years of caring for my horses at home I’ve never seen bots in their manure. Kinda freaked me out to see these gross little beings in the manure of the new horse. Thanks for the link.
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that’s what was used - Equimax = ivermectin + praziquantel 
I can’t tell what criteria they used to rate these. Unfortunately nothing in there talks about resistance issues. There is a growing and well-documented resistance of encysted strongyles to the “power pack” for example. Moxidectin (Quest) is much more effective.
Safeguard pellets (also fenbendazole, like Panacur) should never be used without a documented efficacy on a given farm. It has had such high and widespread resistance issues with strongyles for probably 20+ years now. It’s best use is in a double dose to kill ascarids.
Strongid (Pyrantel pamoate) also has high and widespread resistance issues with strongyles. It’s best use, barring fecal reduction testing to test efficacy on a given farm, is in double doses to kill tapeworms and ascarids.
There are several brands of plain ivermectin used - ivermectin is ivermectin, so I’m not sure what they used to rank them in the order they did - cost maybe?
Other than leaving out critical resistance issues, and how to determine if that exists on a farm, it’s a pretty good article.
Me personally no. Friend’s horse - yes, scoping vet agreed that bots could be cause of/exacerbating ulcers that were found. Horse was de-wormed and treated for ulcers both medically and through supplements.
