I dropped off samples this morning at my clinic. Price has gone up to $25 per sample. For my $75 I could buy and administer several periodic dewormers. Perhaps this is why the newest guidelines for having counts done before blindly treating every 3-4 months has been so hard to catch on? What say COTH?
I’m generally very happy with my vet and clinic and their prices, and I will continue to have the counts done as suggested…just curious of other prices out there.
I use Horseman’s Laboratory online. Prices are similar and I can send it off myself. The vet at the lab calls me with results.
I pay the same with my vet. I’ve heard anywhere from $10 to (yes, really) $100 :eek: I think the latter has to be with a vet who simply doesn’t want to do them.
$75 does buy a lot of dewormer. But we have to look past that in order to HAVE dewormers that still work. Ivermectin already has resistance issues - ascarids, which causes problems in the young horse, and a shortened ERP in some areas. Continuing to blindly use it 3-4-6 times a year is going to speed up those resistance issues and bring in strongyles.
Spending $ on a deworming package that includes fenbendazole, pyrantel pamoate, and oxibendazole is waste of your money because their resistance is high and widespread.
With a couple years’ worth of Spring and Fall FECs, you have a very good idea what category a horse is - low, medium or high shedder. Then do a FEC once a year or even every other year for a while, and just deworm him Spring (Quest Plus if able) and Fall (Equimax), and you’ll be good.
For me the paradox is, no matter what your fecal count the advice is to still worm spring and fall. While the fecal count is interesting, it is pricey and doesn’t change my course of action. I figured this out after having it done a couple of times.
Not a paradox 
The FEC is for things we can see, and those happen to be the things horses either do, or don’t develop good/better/best immunity to - ascarids and strongyles. Horses get classified as generally low, moderate, or high shedders, and low shedders can have a high FEC at some point in their life due to anomalies we don’t always know.
They don’t show you pinworms, bots, or tapeworms, and those are things horses don’t develop immunity against. BUT, you don’t have to deworm often for those more than twice a year (there are always exceptions) due to their lifecycle.
If you have a historically low shedder, then no, you don’t have to do FECs twice a year, or even once. Deworm Spring and Fall and you’re good.
But a horse’s status CAN change, especially as they enter Sr years, and you should have something in place to monitor their status at least every few years.
If your horse is historically a moderate or high shedder, then you need to deworm more than twice a year. The timing of that depends on your local climate. For the SE, that additional 1-2 dewormings is likely to be in the Winter. For the NE and Midwest, that’s likely to be Summer.
Then you have been lucky to only have low or no shedders.
Having dealt with a high shedder, I know the answer is not always the same.
I just had 3 samples done at my local vet teaching hospital, cost was $56 for three.
Nothing.
I have a $15 McMaster slide from Eggzamin and a $180 Amazon microscope.
I have no idea what my current vet charges, but in the past, my vet has charged as much as $50 per FEC. I have 5 equines, so the cost of the equipment has more than paid for itself. I do them about 2-4 times per year, depending on the shedding status of the animal.
It’s very straightforward to learn how to perform FECs. When I was a vet tech, I was trained to do them in a maybe 10 minute training session before I was set loose to do them on my own. The fee you’re paying your vet is more for the manpower/inconvenience than it is for any deep, technical knowledge.
Totally agree. It’s also worth noting that shedding status can change. I’ve seen it swing both ways-- historically high shedders become low shedders, also historically low shedders develop a high FEC seemingly out of the blue.
In my own experience, high shedders who are managed to become low shedders can also be prone to “bounce back” up to high shedding status with stress or life changes-- moving barns, new horses in the environment, etc.
Interesting discussion, thanks everyone!
Texarkana - I have wondered what it would cost to start doing my own and now may look into it. TY!
Whoa!!! The state animal health laboratory here charges $8 for a basic floatation (negative/low/medium/high) and $12 for a quantitative count (with numerical egg counts per gram). The downside is that I have to drive my samples there myself during work hours but it’s totally worth it, as my vet has charged me $10-$30 in the past. I’m lucky to have that option apparently!
Good reminder - we all want a quantitative count, not just neg/low/med/high. We need to have a better handle on actual numbers, both for record-keeping, and for any reduction testing. Who cares if using Safeguard takes a horse from High to Medium if his actual reduction was 3%.
It’s really not challenging. It can be a little intimidating if you don’t feel comfortable in a lab-type setting… but once you see strongyle eggs with your own eyes, they become quite easy to pick out. They are big, obvious, and consistently shaped as compared to all the other literal “crap” you see on the slide. Strongyles and ascarids are the only two species that can be reliably counted in a floatation (regardless of who does it), and ascarids are uncommon in adult horses unless they are around foals.
This is a good place to get started:
https://www.pathintl.org/images/pdf/…te-Control.pdf
Eggzamin sells McMaster slides cheaply:
http://eggzamin.com/shop/
They also sell full kits with technical support, depending on how much you want to spend.
This is a scope that will work well for these purposes:
https://www.amazon.com/AmScope-B120C…ope+microscope
All the other supplies can be sourced easily and cheaply. A saturated epsom salt floatation solution works well and can be made cheaply. An old pill bottle and old syringe can used for both measuring volume and transferring the solution to the slide. Plain gauze is great to strain samples prior to placing on the slide. If you want to get more technical, digital scales and graduated cylinders can be purchased very cheaply on Amazon.
I used these people last time. Heard about them from a friend who has horses and goats and likes that they can do the fecals for all her critters in one transaction. I found their results for my horses to be consistent with prior results through my vet. I did not, however, do a side-by-side comparison. They were very fast with the results. http://www.midamericaagresearch.net/instructions.php
Yeah I ve got a low average shedder. And fecal counts are about $75 each here. I did dig out my childhood microscope thinking I’d try home made counts but haven’t got that together yet.
I paid $37.50 this year, done by my vet.
We charge $25 per FEC at my clinic. Includes a call from the vet, not just a tech, to discuss deworming protocol.
Nothing. It is a free service with my vet provided we have them give the yearly shots and pull a coggins.
One local vet does them for free. Another charges $30. It’s a pain to collect the sample and get it to the vet so I picked up a $250 scope and slide and do my own. At first, I’d split a sample, run my own fecal, and compare it to the vet’s. Turns out egg counting is not rocket science.
$16.
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