How do you define “after deworming”? Unless you’re doing FECRTs (reduction tests) to determine if the high resistant chemicals are working at least well enough (fenbendazole, pyrantel pamoate, oxibendazole), FECRTs are pretty much a waste of $$.
I did my summer fecal test and 3 out of my 4 beasts were “moderate” or “heavy” positive for “strongyle-type eggs” (the donkey, the 5-year-old horse, and the new 7-year-old pony).
It happens. 2 of my 4 were in the moderate category at last Summer’s-end FEC, after several years of everyone being “clean”. I hit them with Equimax as per usual, they were totally clean this Spring and since it was already hot by the time I had FECs actually done, I didn’t even deworm in the Spring.
That’s why you do them regularly, at least once a year, often twice in the beginning, and at least once every couple years for reliably “clean” horses. It just happens. I have one who managed a 1500 FEC several Summers ago. Never that high before, never since. He was one who was clean last Summer.
I dewormed with Strongid and retested 2 weeks later. Pony was down to “light” positive, donkey and horse both still “heavy”. I dewormed just the two of them with Safeguard and retested again 2 weeks later. Horse is finally “light” but donkey is still “moderate.” I suppose now I will try ivermectin on him and retest again??
Yes, you have done some good FECRTs to prove that neither fenbendazole nor pyrantel pamoate are effective enough on your farm, and I wouldn’t use either one of them again. The pony’s reduction was likely coincidence more than chemcal action, since you have 2 others who were not reduced.
Ivermectin is the next thing to use, yes, and you could do another FECRT but I wouldn’t bother.
Question for @JB or @Texarkana or whoever else wants to help me out: what do I do with this information? Do I avoid Strongid entirely from now on since 2 out of 3 equines did not see a reduction on it? Or do I use Strongid on the pony, Safeguard on the horse, and ivermectin on the donkey (presuming his next retest is negative)? (That would be kind of annoying since I can usually split/share tubes amongst them since the horses need more than one tube each and the little guys need less than one.)
See above - avoid it from now on. You COULD, since you still have some heavy shedders, try a combo of pyrantel and oxibendazole on one of them and see what happens. Dose by weight for each of them. The combo has proven to be more effective than each singly, in studies, but you can’t know if that’s true for your particular situation until you try it. If you find that works, then you know you can go with that combo if you’ve got someone who needs a mid-Summer or any additional deworming from here out, so you can save the macrocyclic lactones for when you truly need them (ie for bots).
