Panacur/fenbendazole/Safeguard worming for dogs and cats

[Beentheredonethat]

I have a few cats and occasionally breed purebred kittens, which I’ve been doing 25 plus years and my mom even longer. We’ve never had any issues and they are house cats, not in cages or anything. Recently we had some issues with diarrhea which escalated in some cases, and after much back and forth and testing, fecal samples found giardia, which is actually a relief as we know how to treat it.

After much research, it seems Panacur/fenbendazole/Safeguard is one of the best treatments. Hubby is a large animal vet and loves to look this up, and my best friend is a feline specialist who’s never heard of using it, but gives me feedback. (I also learned Marquis, which is a horse wormer (at $200 a tube!) for EPM is a primo treatment for coccidia.) This is good news as the other traditional treatments don’t work (metrabendazsomething) and are so nasty tasting (sulfa drugs) the animals hate them. It’s also way safer and less toxic than everything else. It’s also an overall wormer and gets most anything, though maybe not all tapeworms. (You can use Drontel for that.)

So, I’m using the leftover Pancur from the horses to dose them initially for 3 to 5 days and getting every cat and the dog at the same time, and ordered the Safeguard cattle/horse suspension for the future. The don’t sell the suspension in the US for cats, only dogs, and the 10% 100 ml for dogs is $38, while the same thing for horses is $120 for 1000 ml. 1000 ml can treat a lot of cats and dogs for years, so if you have more than a few, it’s a huge moneysaver. They push the powder for dogs/cats here, which is about $4 a dose. For 10% solution, the dosing is .2 cc’s/ml’s per pound, or about a cc/ml per 5 lbs dogs/cats/horses.

I’m going to switch over to a worming protocol, which I never did officially. I was doing pyrantel pamoate periodically at 2 week intervals with kittens to get roundworms (which are in mother’s milk.) From what I’ve read of big breeders of dogs and cats, they do the same kind of thing with kittens and puppies with Safeguard to regularly worm and keep down chances of giardia and such. I’m not 100% sure if they do it every two or three weeks and if it’s just one dose, or a three day dose. Every animal in the house is dosed at the same time.

So, if you don’t have this information, this might be useful. If you do, I’d love feedback on what you’ve done in what situations.

[ptownevt]

How much Panacur do you give a cat?

Do you ever use the Ivermectin paste for heartworm prevention? I hate paying big money for tiny bits of ivermectin in chewables when the paste is so cheap.

[moonriverfarm]

And what would the ivermectin or panacur dosage be - by weight of dog?

[Pancakes]

[QUOTE=ptownevt;5616719]
How much Panacur do you give a cat?

Do you ever use the Ivermectin paste for heartworm prevention? I hate paying big money for tiny bits of ivermectin in chewables when the paste is so cheap.[/QUOTE]

Using the paste is a terrific way to overdose your dog. Would love to share with you many stories of people wanting to save a few bucks and ending up with big bills at the ER (if their dogs even survived at all) because their dog wasn’t dosed properly (which is VERY easy to do with a concentrated paste). Not to mention that underdosing could lead to heartworm infection…

Seriously, heartworm protection is NOT expensive. Heartgard at minimum is very cheap.
Proheart is back on the market as an every 6 month dosing injection and is VERY cheap when broken down on a monthly basis. Ask your vet, or call around and see who’s carrying it now.

[Equibrit]

My dogs love these; http://www.durvet.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2:triple-wormer&Itemid=59
They think they are treats.

[Beentheredonethat]

The dosage for Panacur/fenbendazole/Safeguard with the 10% solution is .2 cc’s per lb, or 1 cc every 5 lbs dog or cat. You can dose with paste, it’s just harder to get into a syringe. The suspension is much cheaper.

I have used the horse wormer on the dog, but like Pancakes says, not the best idea. I don’t know much about heartworm and whether fenbendazole works at all for it.

I’m still researching this and would love to know if anyone has done it. My mom’s cats have giardia and they still have diarrhea. They did a five day dosing of everyone, but it didn’t work, so she’s going to do a seven day. I would love to know if anyone has or does do this.

[Pancakes]

Fenbendazole is not a heartworm preventative.

[Marshfield]

Lately I’ve had to treat patients with both Panacur and metronidazole to get the giardia cleared. Whatever substrain we have in our area or coming in with the shelter dogs seems to be a tough one to knock out

[Beentheredonethat]

Marshfield–What treatment protocol are you using? How many days are you dosing? Are you doing one, then the other, or both at the same time? Hopefully we don’t have your heavy duty strain.

[Kryswyn]

My dog friends have used ivermectin for years on their terriers, but they use cow liquid ivermectin and the dose is one or two drops (they’ve told me the actual amounts, but I can’t remember) on a piece of white bread and poof they’re done.

I use paste Panacur to worm my Jacks. This is real scientific, but I swear it’s what my vet told me to do. Two clicks/turn of the wheel per dog for 3 days. Each tube does 3 dogs.

[Equibrit]

We used to worm a kennel full of foxhounds with Ivermectin clear liquid. One quick squirt and you’re done. (quite important when your doing 20 odd couple. It took 3 people. One drawing needleless syringes and one grabbing and squirting, and one removing the hound when done)

[Equibrit]

@Pancakes;5617824

Fenbendazole is not a heartworm preventative.

But - if you use Heartguard you are already worming with fenbendazole monthly.

[Grataan]

Why don’t you just order some compounded 50mg/ml ponazuril from your hubby’s favorite compounding pharmacy? It works better and is cheaper than buying a whole tube of the horse strength according to my friends who are in small animal medicine.

[Marshfield]

I do 10 days of Metronidazole and 5 days of Panacur concurrently on the shelter adoptees with giardia

[Ben_and_Me]

[QUOTE=Equibrit;5619080]
But - if you use Heartguard you are already worming with fenbendazole monthly.[/QUOTE]

Huh?

Heartgard = Ivermectin/Pyrantel

If you use Heartgard, you are clearing out some common parasites – hookworms and roundworms – is that what you meant?

[Grataan]

[QUOTE=Ben and Me;5619844]
Huh?

Heartgard = Ivermectin/Pyrantel

If you use Heartgard, you are clearing out some common parasites – hookworms and roundworms – is that what you meant?[/QUOTE]
That’s HeartGard +. HeartGard is ivermectin only.

[Pancakes]

[QUOTE=Grataan;5622005]
That’s HeartGard +. HeartGard is ivermectin only.[/QUOTE]

Either way, there’s no fenbendazole :lol:

[Ben_and_Me]

[QUOTE=Grataan;5622005]
That’s HeartGard +. HeartGard is ivermectin only.[/QUOTE]

Do they still make regular Heartgard? I searched around on the Merial website for a while (before making the previous post, since I knew someone would jump on me about that…:winkgrin:) and couldn’t find it…

ETA – searched around a bit more and found the product inserts for regular Heartgard. Certainly not what they’re pushing consumers towards, however…

[MeghanDACVA]

Beenthere…
I haven’t read all the posts so excuse any stupid stuff

Cats don’t get threadworms.

Why are they getting giardia over and over? Prob ought to sort that out before treating, and treating, and treating.
And you are sure it is giardia? Your vet confirmed it on fecals?
That your vet has never heard of panacur to treat giardia is worrisome. It has been recognized treatment for years. 50 mg/kg x 3-5 days.

Pancur, and any other form of fenbendazole, is not approved for use in cats. Reasons are not relevant to this discussion.

Don’t use invermectin paste to treat dogs.

If a pet is getting re-infected with any intestinal (or other) parasite, you need to look at WHY and fix THAT problem. Yes, treat them to get rid of what they have right now but the find out what is wrong in your system to allow continual re-infection.

[Justmyluck]

Giardia is in the environment, so you need to control the environment Tto prevent re-infestation. Also giardia isnt easy to get rid of it can often resurface from a dormant state in the pets system, especially if the animal is in stress.