Basically, we are screwed when it comes to dewormers. There are species that now have resistance to every class of dewormer available.
My questions: how many people out there are still using dewormer indiscriminately? Are farms still employing rotational deworming? I’m in my own little bubble these days and don’t know how widespread the problem is.
Next question: is it still responsible to hit horses 1x or 2x a year with ivermectin or moxidectin to remove bots, regardless of FEC? Or is that practice contributing to resistance as well?
Thanks for posting. I had the same thought as your last paragraph after reading the link. On the advice of my vet, I do fecals once a year (after several negative results when done every six months), and deworm with alternating QuestPlus and Zimectrin.
I’m fairly sure I’m the only one in the training bern that does fecals, though the vet may de-worm all the horses on the same schedule she suggested to me.
Here’s a question: Is this a global crisis, or is it location-dependent?
For example - If I owned a cattle property, and my horses were the only horses around for a hundred clicks in any direction… are my horses’ worms going to become resistant? (my guess is probably not, unless a horse bearing drug-resistance worms comes on to the property)
I wonder how bad this problem is in the USA compared to the UK or Australia or NZ for example, because that would then require perhaps a different approach dependent on the level of resistance, the type of horse-keeping practices (i.e. are pasture, yard-and-stall, or stabled horses more at-risk? Solo pastured vs herd pastured?), and even I guess the local climate and import practices (Iceland for example probably has no worm problem at all due to zero import of infected horses).
I worm twice a year - March and Sept. Equest in March, Razor in Sept.
I think it is still very widespread. I’m at a pretty fancy barn and up until this year they were still doing basic rotational deworming. I was doing my own plan guided by fecals, so maybe a few others were too, but they were doing standard every-other-month deworming at the advise of the vet . So, yeah, I think fecal count-based deworming is still in the minority.
I look at the number of posts between here and social media to evidence people still using rotational deworming, and am surprised at the number who still do it.
I worked in the feed industry for 15 years, and part of my job entailed animal husbandry education. I know in presentations I was giving, I was recommending fecals and target deworming well over 10-12 years ago.
I remember meeting resistance from people about the cost of fecals. I also remember countering those protests with the cost of rotational deworming versus that of target deworming.
With my own horses, I still have fecals done twice yearly, spring and fall. There have been times where I have been told not to use anything until the next fecal.
I think part of the reason (I surmise from reading posts) some people still do the whole rotational deworming thing is that they feel it is cheaper than paying the vet to do fecals and it is the same end result so why not do it this way…
There is also the ever present theory that the whole doing a fecal thing is just a money grab by the vets.
Before I get pounced on - I have been doing fecal checks for long enough now that I do not remember when we started doing them.
I am just passing along what I have read.
I’ve had a similar experience. I’ve done fecals on my horses for years now, but it hasn’t changed how I deworm because the results are pretty much always the same, year after year.
I will say that for those of us whose horses live out and in herds, fecals have to be planned for. The week before the vet is due to come out in the spring I spend a lot more time watching for my horses to poop so I can grab a few fecal balls. It’s not as easy as just taking a few from the stall the horse has been in overnight.
I’m guessing if your horses have no contact with others you are OK, but you could create your own resistant stain, if you deworm enough.
It’s a problem in the US. I bought a microscope to do my own fecal counts, because why not? I am not sure how good I’ll be, but I’m going to compare my results to the vet’s and go from there.
We have horses near by so flies can spread some larvae even if I am meticulous about cleaning. Especially strongyles, I have learned.
An easier solution is to just bring the horses somewhere for a bit before the vet gets there so you can know that the pile that was just made is from that horse. Tied to a hitching post, stuck in a paddock, whatever form of individual space works.
I believe this is a global problem; anthelmintic resistance has been documented on every continent.
Years ago, I read an article “No horse owner is an island.” That article was about vaccinations, but I think the concept applies here as well. Even if your horses are isolated, resistance can be a problem. For starters, you can create your own resistance problems by not using dewormers strategically. It’s pretty common, in my experience, to have localized resistance problems on farms with poor deworming practices, even if there isn’t a lot of horses entering or leaving the property.
A lot of your other questions have been well documented, although I don’t have all the links handy. For example, the AAEP’s Internal Parasite Guidelines are a good source to begin with: https://aaep.org/document/internal-parasite-control-guidelines
Good idea & s/b possible for most horseowners. Horses need to be accessible for vet, right?
My Herd of 3 is Horse, Pony, Mini - so sometimes I can luck out & find samples from each one easily in the paddock or stall.
Horses are out 24/7, coming into stalls for feeding & closed in only when I expect vet or shoer.
I pasteworm based on Spring fecal count done by my vet & have done so for over 15yrs.
On occasion, she will recommend a 2nd dose 2wks after the 1st.
Since I have both pony & mini Moxidectin is out - I use ivermectin/praziquantel so tapeworms get hit too.
This is a problem and I’m not sure how we can overcome it.
When paste dewormers were made available cheaply and OTC, we created a monster we didn’t see coming. People no longer needed to involve the vet in parasite control. Additionally, dewormer is CHEAP and available everywhere.
At one point, a vet I used was charging $50 per fecal egg count. There’s no way you can convince the masses to get on board with that when you can buy tubes of most dewormers for under $10 each.
Vets have since gotten wiser and started providing more affordable options for FECs. Since many times the recommendation might be using no dewormer, it can be a lot cheaper than rotational programs. But it adds a level of (minor) inconvenience that can be a hard sell.
This is a problem even among those who are worming “twice a year”. They are grabbing whatever is cheapest and giving it. Usually a generic tube of ivermectin, but still. No FEC’s done, nothing. I think that does not help our problem any more than the old school rotational worming.
In my podunk neck of the woods, people still have their heads in the sand about anything “new” in regards to horses. Never mind that this is not new at all.
And yup, vets really are charging $50 for fecals.
I see far too many people who either know/don’t care, or just don’t care to learn a new way or spend “that much” money on it. Just stuff that $3 tube of ivermectin down the horse every once in a while and it’ll be fine.
A LOT. Like…a lot. In several FB groups I’m in, this time of year, then again in the Fall (and sporadically in Summer and Winter), there are LOTS of “what’s your opinion on the best wormer” or “what’s your go-to wormer”, and of the sometimes 100s of replies, I would say 80%+ are around the idea of using Safeguard, or rotating every 2 months, or rotating “with the seasons” or “I get whatever’s cheapest”, as well as some not-insignificant comments of “I deworm every 6 weeks” or “every quarter” or “fecals don’t show you everything so why bother, I just use whatever I feel is needed” and "just use the schedule that horse . com has (or any of the other online sites that still have outdated rotational schedules)
It. Is. Terrifying.
And then there are those who are guided by their vets on decades-old practices, so who knows how many more of those clients are doing the wrong thing still
Yes, we have to do that if those things are a problem. If you only need to target each of those once a year, you can use plain ivermectin or moxidectin once for bots, and a double dose of pyrantel pamoate once for tapeworms. If you’re in a desert area with few flies, you could likely get away with treating for bots every few years, and same with tapeworms - if there’s no grazing ever, maybe once every couple years.
But even then, you still need a macroclycic lactone (and -ectin) for neck threadworms
Even if you had closer neighbors, strongyle eggs don’t move around much, infective larva don’t either, I’m pretty sure the grass mites that carry tapeworms don’t either, so what’s on your property is what’s there. So no, they won’t become resistant unless you over/mis-use effective drugs.
Many countries have dewormers by Rx only, and you have to have a high enough FEC to warrant it. It’s really a problem for foals who, by the time you have a high FEC, might be pretty sick or have damage. I’m pretty sure the UK has Rx as well, not sure about the other countries listed. Sweden is on Rx-only
Neck threadworms and pinworms don’t either, so it’s all of those that you need to be aware of in coming up with a treatment plan
Mine live out, and I bring then in several hours before the vet visit. Nearly always there’s a pile in each stall by the time the vet leaves, and if there isn’t, she’ll lube up with a glove and go retrieve a sample.
What I don’t get about fecal egg counts is that they don’t actually correlate to a horse’s parasite burden, so even if you use that info to inform your worming schedule, wouldn’t it just technically give you the same results every time because your horse’s shedding level will likely just remain consistent? Or is the idea just to use fecal egg counts before and after worming to monitor the resistance of a particular worm population and that’s it?
And I’m pretty sure the vets in my area are not the most up to speed with the latest info… I had a fecal egg count done on my horse shortly after I bought her, wormed her with Equimax after seeing that the results were somewhat high, then had another check done 2 weeks later and her egg count came back as zero. The vet’s advice from then on was to continue worming her on a quarterly schedule, with no specifics about which wormers to use quarterly, and no advice to continue doing FEC’s each quarter.
Should the FEC be done once a year or once a quarter? If it’s just once a year I kind of don’t understand the point of it… to me it seems like it would be more useful to do before AND after EVERY deworming to monitor the efficacy of the treatment, right?
. So, yeah, I think fecal count-based deworming is still in the minority.
