Worming: How often? And what to use.

[stripes]

I just had 2 of my horses at the vet clinic, one for teeth & one for Pigeon fever (poor boy ) and since they were there we did a Fecal on both. The clinic I use was having a special on Fecals, so why not. I just got the call that they look great and I don’t need to worm them until Spring! I have never heard this before, I always worm the pasture horses every other month and the barn horses every 3 months. Both horses that had the fecals have not been wormed since Sept.30, so this was excellent news!

Has anyone else done fecals on their horses? What is your worming routine?

Just thought this might be an interesting topic

[MysticOakRanch]

Yes, more recent research shows we over-deworm our horses and are helping to create “super worms” - worms who are resistent to standard wormers. I still worm my youngsters every other month (with a rotation, ivermectin and strongid), but once they get past two years old, we go down to twice annually and do an ocassional fecal. I usually do one worming late in the Fall after the Bots are done laying their eggs - and just a warning, fecal tests do NOT catch Bots - you can actually identify them yourself if you are an avid poop-examiner (hate to admit it, I can’t resist a pile of fresh poop). Then again in the Spring.

[clint]

My vet and I have had lengthy chats about worms, and he is another who thinks many horses are unnecessarily wormed. I worm my foals every six weeks, (and to be honest, he thinks they would be fine going eight weeks), then every other month from one year to two, and after that, along with the other horses, once every three months.

[Laurierace]

Foals every four weeks, rotating double dose by weight of panacur and strongid and a dose and a half of oxybendazole. There are countless threads on the deworming of adult horses based upon the results of fecals in the horse care section if you are interested.

[JB]

FEC Spring and Fall.

Deworm regardless of the count - bots and tapeworms should be targeted at least yearly, but twice a year in a lot of the country.

High counts get an appropriate dewormer, and another FEC at an appropriate interval.

go to www.thehorse.com and look at Strategic Deworming under videos/webinars.

[Cat_Tap]

I have been doing fecals for several years now, spring and summer. All but one were clean and he was dewormed in July. I deworm all after the first good frost with Quest + to get any tapes they may have as they do not necessarily show up in fecals. This year no one needed to be done until this winter. I should add that I have a closed herd.

I much prefer paying for the fecals rather than give them unnecessary chemicals and I don’t have to worry about developing resistance.

[echodecker]

We started doing fecals last year, there is a great website: www.horsemenslab.com You can go there and preorder fecal kits, if you preorder 6, it costs $13 per kit. They will send you however many you ask for, you get the samples, fill out the forms and mail them in. Postage is all prepaid. They email your results in a few days, along with recommendations on whether to worm. If your count is above 200, they tell you to worm, then automatically send you another kit to use in 3 weeks.

They are also very helpful if you have questions, it is run by a vet. Highly recommend!

[omare]

Thanks for the link echodecker…the price for fecals w our beloved vet is getting so very very pricey!

[Gayle_in_Oregon]

My vet charges $15 for a fecal and we have been doing them for a few years now and most of my adult horses dont get wormed any more than once a year (I worm the mares just before they foal). Amazing how resistant they can get. But, we also haul our manure away and rest, and reseed our grass paddocks and small pastures in winter starting in Sept or October and the horses dont go back out on them till late spring. WE dont pick up ‘all’ the manure in the larger paddocks and pastures but we do pick it up everywhere else including the sand turn out for winter. We have old tall fescue in parts of the paddocks and that is where they drop their manure so its hard to pick up AND they wont eat the tough grass unless they are starving anyway. All the horses get turned out for at least 20 minutes a day and all have 12x12 outdoor runs attached to their stalls so none are ‘confined’ in stalls, “cages” all day. I am a BIG believer in fresh air for horses.

[camohn]

I do it every 3 months as well. Our horses are out on plenty of pasture which I think helps. I used to do it more when I was in a boarding situation with a lot of horses on small acerage. I alternate ivermectin every other rotation. I don’t use Quest at all since there is often a preggo mare around here/I won’t usedQuest on preggo mares and foals and I can’t be bothered to NOT use the same thing on everyone.