Another thing that I’ve read in that AAEP guidelines doc is that “Non-composted horse manure should never be spread on pastures as this will increase the level of parasite contamination.”
I know SOOOO many people who drag their pastures on a regular (sometimes weekly) basis to ‘clean’ them, I’m not sure if dragging a pasture is the same as spreading manure but it’s definitely spreading the manure around this is a piece of info that definitely has not entered the public consciousness, at least in my area.
I was always opposed to dragging pastures but my vet says it is fine in hot dry weather. A summer in Alabama where it is 95 degrees for weeks, no rain and very low humidity - eggs and larva will not survive long under these conditions. Especially if you are breaking up the piles of manure and speading them in a thin layer over the ground. Not such a good idea here in the winter or spring when it is cool and raining.
I still spread over at the far corner of a large pasture where the sole inhabitant is too scared to go. Makes me feel better.
Recently, I was surprised to have a vet recommend in writing a rotational schedule every 8 weeks like the old days. How can that be? They offer a discount for purchasing all the dewormers at once to cover the whole year.
And, are you all aware of the UK Parasite Research that’s been going on for something like 30 yrs? http://horseparasites.ca.uky.edu/
They have a herd of horses not dewormed in all those years.
And Dr. Nielsen and his team made many videos on the subject:
You’re right, they don’t necessarily correlate, but if you’ve got a regular FEC history, you get a pretty good idea of their general status. Most horses are pretty consistent for years, but a stressful situation, or just age, can change that. So if you have FECs that show you the same thing for a few years, it’s fine to skip FECs for a few years, treat them based on their typical status, and just check in every few years to see if things are changing
You can do that too, and it’s a GREAT idea to do reduction testing if you have a high enough count. If you find you can use pyrantel pamoate or, less likely, fenbendazole, to treat strongyles for the 3rs or 4th dewormin for moderate or high shedders, that would be a GREAT alternative to having to use ivermectin all the time.
As it should have been
and that speaks directly to part of my last comment on how many vets are not even remotely up to date on information that isn’t even new anymore
We generally know the efficacy situation. You can do your own farm-specific efficacy testing, but the results aren’t going to change in 6 months or a year or even a couple years. Resistance takes years, unless you’re just doing things really badly.
Do enough regular FECs to give you a general idea of a horse’s status, then you can do fewer.
Spreading entirely depends on temps. If you spread manure across a field in AZ in July when temps are 110*, those eggs are going to die REALLY quickly. But spread when temps are a balmy 70*? Those eggs are going to pretty quickly hatch into infective larva. That’s GREAT if there aren’t horses grazing, as those infective larva will die pretty quickly without a host. But if horses are grazing, they’re easily going to eat those infective larva
I’m not surprised at all, there are just SO MANY vets who still believe that’s the way to go
My boarding barn does the rotational deworming, but I insist that my gelding get fecals and dewormed as needed. He’s only out with one other pony.
I think it’s too hard to enforce at a large boarding facility, but I have been at another large barn that did do fecals regularly on all of the horses. I’m a bit of a helicopter mom, so I like to take an active role in my horse’s care. Although I think many people have no clue.
Here in Florida, we have a very bad buggy season. I don’t know how you can deworm less.
I was doing Quest plus once a year and ivermectin once a year but then everyone got pinworms. I used Fenbendazole for the pinworms. This year we had bot flies pretty badly. And in the summer you have terrible gnats and the threat of neck threadworms. My vet suggested I was deworming too much, but I don’t see how you can deworm less?
I actually worry far more about antibiotic resistance and the overuse of antibiotics in factory farming. To me, that’s a much bigger problem. I already had one antibiotic resistant infection and it took 2 years to get rid of it- we threw every antibiotic at that infection and it just kept coming back. Insurance paid something like $40,000 for the antibiotics of last resort and the infection just laughed. If I had been debilitated to begin with I would probably be dead by now. I certainly hope I’m immune by now but I could be a carrier and possibly spread it. Not a comforting thought.
I hate the idea of needing a script to deworm my horse. Better education might help.
I thought of this thread yesterday pm. I had the vet out to do a basic check up on my new to me horse and vet proclaimed horse needed to be dewormed based on visual observation of horse. No FEC was done (or suggested). Vet recommended Quest Plus. And we dewormed him with that on the spot.
Fortunately most bugs don’t come with a risk if internal parasites. The gnats do bring the risk of neck threadworms but if you’re using a macroclyclic lactone at least twice, that’s rarely a problem.
The lifecycle of bots means you don’t really have to deworm more than twice a year. Same with tapeworms. Pinworms do have enough resistance now that when you know they’re a problem, just hit the horse with double fen, don’t bother with ivermectin.
A LOT more education, and vets need to step up their game on this. There is really no changing the minds of people who are blindly reliant on their vets. There is no easy changing the minds of people who deworm without their vets and simply do ever other month, or 4 times a year, or way worse, every 6 weeks, because “it’s always worked, not going to change now”.
And yes, worse than the idea of having to do this Rx is the idea of not having anything that works well anymore, and that’s why I keep getting in the middle of these discussions. At least the people who are open to learning new things will learn.
At least he got a very useful and appropriate dewormer for this time of year. You don’t need your vet to do fecals, you can have then done yourself through Horseman’s Lab, Dover, Smart Pack, and some other places. Get a quantitative count (actual count, not 1-4) and you can devise your own program.
Since horsie came with an undisclosed deworming history, I felt it was a reasonable course of action. I’m sure vet would do a FEC if I ask. My mom uses same vet and runs poo samples up to his clinic regularly (for her sheep).
Just for reference, I looked up what my local veterinary laboratory charges for a Mc Masters fecal egg count–mind you, this is the charge to the DVM–$52.39.
I wonder if, from a vet’s perspective, it’s a struggle to get people to deworm their horses at all? So then it’s just easier to tell them the old fashioned way that everyone’s familiar with vs. the extra step of getting a FEC? I feel like for dogs and cats, one of the biggest problems with owners is that they just don’t bother to put their pets on heartworm prevention, and vets are always looking for ways to convince people that it is indeed important. However as we all know horses are a lot higher commitment of a pet than a dog or cat so IDK if that’s actually a real thing, just a theory of mine lol.
Which is insane. I don’t even understand the justification for that, apart from the fact it requires manpower and operation of labs is expensive in general. Doing McMasters counts is a technical skill easily taught to most anyone and can be executed by with even a low quality microscope.
Antibiotic resistance is also a huge problem and I definitely am not minimizing it. But a key difference is that we have a fair amount of research and funding in that area to continue developing new medicines and therapies.
I don’t think there is anything on the horizon to help with anthelmintic resistance.
When I had 4 horses, I had them at home. I did fecals to help determine worming needs; 3 of the horses the vet hardly ever recommended worming other than for bots/tapes, the 4th horse it didn’t seem to matter - I could pretty much count on the vet recommending worming every fecal I did. Guess she was a just a buggy gal.
Now I have 1 gelding (no farm, so he’s boarded) and his vary, sometimes worming is needed, other times not.
IME the much bigger issue is getting people to stop deworming so much. I know there are some who don’t deworm at all because fecs keep coming up clean, but IME those are the minority. The much bigger problem is dialing down the over- and mis-use of dewormers
I’m curious. How long does one usually wait for FEC results? A sample was submitted on Wednesday and now it’s Monday and there’s no results. Is there a time limit for testing? Just wondering if another sample would be required.
At the vet I use there is some times a few day delay in them getting the response to me. More of a situation where the office is not quick than them not testing the sample quick enough.
this is a piece of info that definitely has not entered the public consciousness, at least in my area.
and that speaks directly to part of my last comment on how many vets are not even remotely up to date on information that isn’t even new anymore 
