I’ve heard that you should rotate dewormers, so which one is preferable for use in the Spring (Kentucky) and which one for the Fall?
Thanks,
EE
Quest Plus in spring and Equimax in the fall is a minimum. Your fecal results throughout the year will tell you if anything more is necessary for your horse.
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Yup, what Laurie said.
Moxidectin is less toxic to the dung beetles than ivermectin, so we use that in the spring when they’re more active.
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My vet, and some online vet clinic recommendation schedules, says Equimax in spring and QuestPlus in the fall. That’s what I’ve been doing for years. I’m in the Great Lakes region.
Southern Middle Tennessee here.
Quest Plus in the Spring.
Zimectrin Gold in the Fall.
i take fecals to the vet in the Spring for my two remaining horses. Counts are always low.
They are on ~22 acres, de-worming 2x/yearly is sufficient. Less is more as the worms are becoming more and more resistant to medicine – especially Ivermectin according to my vet.
in case anyone is interested, I ran across this worm medicine comparison chart:)
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Equimax contains the same active ingredients as Zimecterin Gold without the risk of chemical burns to the mucosal tissue. :yes: 
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In SoCal, it seems vets have changed to using Panacur 5x twice a year. My vet is coming Friday so I can ask, but there is concern of immunity from excess worming. Not a show barn and not in pasture.
My vet said Quest Plus in spring to knock out the encysted strongyles before they erupt from the gut lining. I’m not sure what he recommends for fall, same or different?
But…you’re not hitting tapes or bots with that. Maybe tapes aren’t an issue if you’re not in pasture, but bots would be? And fenbendazole has a lot of resistance issues, so it’s likely you’re not taking care of the strongyles, either.
The AAEP has a great comprehensive deworming guideline. Lemme go get it…
Ah, here we go
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^^^ :yes:
Do you mean a Power Pack (double dose fenbendazole for 5 days in a row)? Assuming so - WHY? It doesn’t kill bots. It likely doesn’t kill much in the way of strongyles. It doesn’t kill tapeworms.
Fenbendazole (Panacur, Safeguard) has high, widespread resistance from strongyles.
Ivermectin, with or without praziquantel for tapeworms, for the Fall.
You all are AMAZING! I did QuestPlus (prior to asking in this post) so I wanted to be sure I did the right one. Of the different answers, does it matter WHERE you are? Our KY issues might be completely different from the CA ones. So to satisfy my safety brain … in KY: QuestPlus in spring is the “right” way to go?
Thanks!
EE
The only variances are timing, as you want to wait until temps are reliably above 45*, and that’s going to be different for NY than NC, and then your particular management in terms of what you actually use. If you’re in So Cal and horses don’t get grass, tapeworms are hardly a problem, so you don’t need to treat for them more than once a year really.
But yes, if you’ve got pasture, you’ve got dung beetles in some capacity, so keeping them safer by using moxidectin in the Spring is the way to go.
Of course there are situations where a horse cannot have moxidectin, so you don’t have a choice, unless you have proven that pyrantel pamoate works on your farm (in which case you can double dose it and get tapeworms as well as storngyles), or that fenbendazole works (won’t get tapeworms no matter the dose).
I use equimax in the spring. Horses live outside 24/7 on 20+ acres. We have a bot fly problem.
Instant results when I wormed them.
Im tempted to do another dose on my one that always looks like garbage. Last year when he was really mangey my vet had my worm 5 days straight with something… totallt forgot what. Made a big difference for him.
I live in Montana, so it gets cold etc.
Wow, glad I commented – I was always QuestPlus and Equimax, moved to new barn and the protocol was Panacur twice a year per their vets, so I will ask to make sure. We don’t seem to have botflys – I have only seen them in photos in my 30 years of horse boarding, and unfortunately, no grass pastures. So without bot/tape maybe it is an okay protocol. On Friday, I will confirm what my vet says in case any SoCal peeps are reading!
Do you have the option of using Quest Plus in the Spring, save the dung beetles? If not, I understand.
Im tempted to do another dose on my one that always looks like garbage. Last year when he was really mangey my vet had my worm 5 days straight with something… totallt forgot what. Made a big difference for him.
That 5 days would have been a Panacur Power Pack (or Safeguard Power Dose, but Panacur more likely). If you are able to use Quest Plus in the Spring, you’d eliminate the need for a PP, and would do it more safely for the horse.
I live in Montana, so it gets cold etc.
That only affects the timing of when you do things. Snow cover in the Winter means there’s almost a zero % chance of infection during those months (whereas here in NC our changes of infection are lower in the hot dry Summer months).
Fenbendazole (Panacur) has very high, widespread resistance (across the world, not just North America), so should be assumed to be useless unless and until fecal tests prove it works. And for that, you have to start with a high enough count to get a decent idea of level of reduction And no matter what, fenbendazole doesn’t kill bots or tapeworms.
We don’t seem to have botflys – I have only seen them in photos in my 30 years of horse boarding, and unfortunately, no grass pastures. So without bot/tape maybe it is an okay protocol. On Friday, I will confirm what my vet says in case any SoCal peeps are reading!
Yes, the desert areas with little to no grazing typically have much less of an issue with many bugs (ie botflies) and tapeworms. The tapeworm mites can survive for a while on hay, just not in larger numbers, so while you don’t need to target tapes twice a year in places where grazing is little to none, that hay issue does mean you should treat for them yearly.
But the fenbendazole is likely to be so ineffective as to be a waste, and using it just prolongs resistance.
I’ve never used Quest or QuestPlus because of reported problems (illness/fatalities) way back when it first came out. What’s changed to make it safer?
I’m not sure if anything changed per se. But we do have a better idea of what population of horses is at risk: young horses, anything so small that it can be easily overdosed (minis, etc.), horses with low body weight/lack of fat reserves…
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I don’t think the product has changed. I think the problem was that because it was so effective, if a horse had a large number of parasites, the dead parasites passing through caused a blockage. You also had to be more careful not to overdose.
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There was a problem with the lock mechanism on the plunger when Quest was first released. It would slip, small horses would get overdosed. They fixed that rather quickly and it’s not been an issue in years (a decade??)
As long as your horses aren’t tiny, emaciated, or absolutely loaded with parasites, there’s really no reason to not use quest or quest plus.
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The problems were both of those - the original plunger locking mechanism kept failing, resulting in overdoses for smaller horses, AND people who hadn’t been regularly deworming, or using things with lots of resistance, were suddenly using the big guns on horses who had a high worm load, so there were impaction issues.
Quest is perfectly safe to use as directed. If your horse has or has had EPM, don’t use it (and you might have to be careful with ivermectin too, so…)
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