Hello, my 11 years old gelding has a dull skin color and still has some of his winter coat. We live in the south in Arkansas. Our mare horse almost dropped her winter coat but not our gelding. He has been on a rotational dewormer all last year (1 tube every 2 months) with a broad spectrum of dewormers including Ivermectin and Praziquantel for tape worms. He doesn’t show any signs of colic, lethargy, weight lose or any health issues so far except may be he is losing a bit of his mane but he also rub his mane against the tube fence to access to hay. For 2018, we didn’t resume the schedule until last week when we gave him 1 dose of Pyrantel Pamoate and plan on getting him back on schedule. I am going to give him this week to see if his color coat comes back but if it doesn’t what should i do? just give him 1 tube of Fenbendazole or give him a power pack?
I suggest a fecal egg count (FEC). I did rotational wormers with my last horse and ended up creating a monster at 12 years old. Her FEC was over 2,000 with my strict plan, and took several months to come to normal range with a vet’s supervision. Her pasture neighbor also had a high FEC, which is the horse I have now.
I now live in NC and right now give Quest (with praziquantel?) in the fall/winter (after a hard frost) and Ivermectin with praziquantel in the spring. I know that praziquantel is very safe so I add it to my wormer each time. I followed regularly with a FEC but it was so consistently low that my vet suggested I repeat every couple of years or so. This schedule is recommended by my vet since I had so many FECs for data. Realistically, Ivermectin and quest kill parasites at all ages, while Pyrantel Pamoate kills only specific stages, and should be given for 5 days in a row to get developing parasites. It’s safe, and is what puppies are wormed with. Ivermectin and quest have a relatively narrow window of safety, and are pretty much the only wormers that don’t have significant resistance yet. YET. IMO, it’s only a matter of time…
Yeah I would quit the frequent worming, and look at his overall health and diet. Any chance he is early stage Cushing’s? How is his weight?
I would check with your vet for deworming recommendations and have him in for a physical to rule out something else.
