PowerPac and Shedding?

[Amy3996]

When did “PowerPac your horse to induce shedding instead of clipping” become a thing?

I’m in a grooming tips group on FB. OP wanted to know if she was “too late” to clip her thick-coated horse before show season. Consensus was no - clip and then groom/hot cloth and you’ll be good to go.

The number of people in that comment section who are recommending that the OP PowerPac the horse to make him shed in lieu of clipping is shocking. My immediate thought was that needlessly using dewormers like this is only contributing to resistance problems. Am I missing something here?

[Scribbler]

Is this even a cause and effect thing or just that both are seasonal? Or is there a physiological effect does it shock the body into hair loss?

[trubandloki]

I look forward to reading the answers to this thread because I have never heard of using a PowerPac to get your horse to shed and my simple brain can not understand how that would work or be a good idea.

[Simkie]

Worming to trigger shedding is OLD and probably worked when horses consistently had such a load as to be holding on to hair because they were unthrifty due to worms.

But yeah, most likely to contribute to resistance these days and unlikely to help with shedding unless the horse just hasn’t been wormed appropriately.

[Amy3996]

I have no idea. I’ve never noticed any change in shedding patterns when I’ve used a PowerPac to deworm. But my n=2 on that, so who knows.

Here are a couple of quotes from the group:
“Clip. If you really don’t want to clip, you can give a Panacur PowerPac. That makes them shed like crazy.”

To which I replied: “Using dewormers needlessly only contributes to resistance problems.”

This person answered: “That would be rotational dewormer, not a PowerPac. Most of the worm species that are eliminated by a PowerPac do not shed in a fecal so you wouldn’t know they had them unless you treat.”

I asked why she was advocating for use of a PowerPac for no other reason than to induce shedding, since OP never mentioned any suspicion of a parasite problem, just a thick coat. The original PowerPac comment went poof after that.

Then there was a different person who said: “PowerPac him and 16 hours of light. You should be able to read a newspaper in the darkest corner of the stall. Curry until your arms fall off.”

So maybe this person is incorrectly correlating the PowerPac and shedding when it’s the increased light and grooming actually doing the job?

[trubandloki]

@Amy3996

Then there was a different person who said: “PowerPac him and 16 hours of light. You should be able to read a newspaper in the darkest corner of the stall. Curry until your arms fall off.”

So maybe this person is incorrectly correlating the PowerPac and shedding when it’s the increased light and grooming actually doing the job?

I laughed as I read the first sentence I quoted, had the same exact thought you had in your second sentence. It is the light, not the wasted dewormer that is causing the shedding. Oh my.

[JB]

While it may be that a horse with a high encysted strongyle load, could hang on to a Winter coat longer than he should, thereby shedding once the PP was done, there are 2 things here:

• the % of horses with that situation is/was probably pretty low
• there’s still the coinciding event of “it’s Spring”.

It would be MUCH more meaningful if the PP was reliably done on the horse who was still very furry in May. Not so much in March or April.

The additional problem is that there’s so much resistance now to the Power Pack, that the odds of it killing a significant %, is fairly low.

And it won’t kill bots, or tapeworm, but it will kill pinworms, and may do ok with adult strongyles

One other potential correlation is that a Power Pack was an old time ulcer “treatment” that does have some small merit. Fenbendazole is in the same family as omeprazole. It’s NOT what I would consider an effective ulcer treatment BUT, it may have some value for really mild ulcery situations and IF that is causing hair funk, could help.

But in general? Coincidence.

[yaya]

I knew a lady who would not give ivermectin at certain times of the year because it would “hair ‘em up”. It was a long time ago, so I can’t remember when you “weren’t supposed to give it”, but I’d bet maybe it was fall?