moxidectin kills encysted strongyles, which ivermectin doesn’t. And because of a fairly significant resistance with fenbendazole now, moxidectin is more effective than a Power Pack for those encysted stages.
In general, Quest Plus in Spring, Equimax in Fall, but there may be reasons to do it the other way around. Some feel that taking care of encysted stronglyes in the Fall is better, so they don’t sit in the horse over Winter. My take on that is I’d rather protect dung beetles than worry about what’s likely a pretty insignificant encysted colony. Ivermectin kills dung beetles, and they are most active in the Spring and into early Summer. Not so much in the Fall.
Is Quest Plus safe to use in a horse that has had EPM? I’ve heard conflicting ideas on that. I used Equimax last fall without problem on him, and have used QP on other (non-EPM) horses for years with no bad side effects.
I know quite a few EPM horses who get QP every Spring and are fine. That said, at least one of the owners does a round of Levamisole during that time, as an extra precaution.
I know a lot of people are afraid to use moxidectin on EPM horses, but have no problem using ivermectin, when both have the same potential to cross the blood-brain barrier, however tiny that potential is
I would not use either one while the horse was actively recovering, just to be safe.
I hope JB can answer this one…I just dewormed with Quest Plus (yeah, spring is springing already down here in Florida). We’re shipping our horses in about 40 days to the Midwest (moving). The boarding stable is requesting that they are wormed three days prior to getting up there in early April. Should I use Ivermectin? They will essentially be on dry lot between now and then.
The concept of refugia can be utilized by keeping the frequency of drug treatments at a
minimum when pasture refugia is low (e.g., during the temperature extremes of cold winters or
hot summers and during droughts). Consequently, the old practice of “dose-and-move”, is now
considered to select more strongly for resistance, as moving newly dewormed horses to a new
pasture removes the dilution effect that would have been provided by a good size pasture
refugia (Waghorn et al., 2009
Quest will be good for at least 10 weeks, if not 12, so there won’t be any egg shedding before 10 weeks (and that’s assuming some resistance in the form of a shortened egg reappearance period (ERP). If you MUST use something, and they require some proof, I’d use ivermectin. But I wouldn’t use anything if you can get away with it. But that’s just me
Can you just take a picture of an empty tube of Dewormer 3 days out with your phone? Will have a date stamp on it - would that suffice vs worming again for no reason?
A lot of big thoroughbred farms deworm horses before sales and shipping, and then they get to the new farm and have a positive fecal and the new manager freaks out. It’s largely pointless because the horses get stressed during shipping, which can lead to strongyles excysting and maturing. That’s our theory as parasitology researchers, at least.
Also, moxidectin isn’t going to get rid of all of the worms anyway. The stocking density and management practices are far more important for parasite control at the new farm than deworming horses prior to arrival.
Wait, seriously? Still? Wow. I think they have it at the local store here. We’re a very conservative county as well, but maybe they all got their fill already.
That is freaking sad. I heard that some stores were keeping it behind the counter to slow down demand. Someone comes in that they recognize and asks for it, well, they can get it. Some tourist walks in…nope, we’re all out.
Coverage of “off-label” use of ivermectin for Covid was a joke - it’s for horses with worms, hahaha. End of discussion. I don’t recall hearing anything about the dosage of ivermectin paste for horses vs pills for human beings. It sounded like they were interchangeable. If ivermectin is FDA approved for people what’s wrong with using 2 bucks worth of horse medicine from the feed store. I think we are going to see too many horses (and other species) who will not be dewormed at all. $25 for a tube, one tube, plus shipping? One site says “as low as $7.99.” There will be people who can’t afford it and others who refuse to pay that much.
As I recall the history, look back a few decades: deworming horses was done by vets pouring a liquid medication into a horse through a tube into the stomach. There weren’t many medications available and resistance became a problem. When I started hanging out in the horse world 25 years ago ivermectin was a miracle cure and resistance wasn’t going to be a problem. I expect that was the impetus for giving every horse a tube of ivermectin every other month.
Yep. Back a million years ago, I would deworm my horses in sync with their being reshod, so the horses were dewormed about every 6 weeks. Now I don’t deworm unless the fecal egg count indicates I should. Is it better? Probably, so I’ll stick with it.
And I guess the days of $1.99 per tube of generic Ivermectin are gone. >sigh<
ivermectin is an approved treatment for several human issues. And interestingly enough, the dosage is the same.
The paste formulation isn’t approved for human use. That doesn’t mean it’s harmful. But also, people are stupid and some will, and have, squirted a whole tube into their mouths
Too many don’t get dewormed now. But I bet people will just buy the cheapest they can find, which is usually a pyrantel pamoate or fenbendazole, which is useless anyway most of the time, but heck, they do that now, just by whatever is cheapest, which may or may not be plain ivermectin
That’s because the only drug available was too caustic to give orally, so had to be deposited directly into the stomach. Resistance wasn’t an issue back then.
Every parasitologist knew and said that resistance would eventually be a problem. It can’t NOT be a problem, as that’s what parasites do. It was only a question of how long it would take.
The big impetus was getting control of the major parasite problems facing horses at the time, which was mostly small strongyles. The information that was available then indicated that we had to work harder to keep load low, and since ivermectin was good for about 8 weeks, that gave rise to the every other month deal.
