Your Vaccine and Wormer Protocol for Babies, please

[Beentheredonethat]

I have what I do, what I’ve read, recommendations, vets’ ideas, etc. I would like to get an overall idea of what everyone generally does, though I know some are region specific.

For example, I think most people worm a foal monthly for a year starting at a month?

Vaccines are kind of a pain the first year because you need to deal with when the mare’s immunity wears off, so instead of buying 3 in1’s, 4in 1’s, 5 in 1’s, etc., you have to buy a lot of individual ones, starting some at 3/4 months, some and 6/7 and giving two or three at two or three month intervals.

Thanks for everyone’s input. I’m sure this will be useful for a lot of people who don’t do this regularly.

[JB]

http://www.thehorse.com/Parasites/Parasites1104.pdf

Never underestimate the huge damage parasites can do to foals in a short time. Ascarids are a HUGE concern, and there is enough resistance to ivermectin that one should regularly use double doses of fenbendazole and/or pyrantel pamoate to target those.

[TrotTrotPumpkn]

How are you estimating your foal’s weight?

I don’t have a clue…

[JB]

http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/health/foalweight-128.shtml
http://www.ehow.com/how_2085956_estimate-foals-weight.html
http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/health/breeding/eqweigh28/

[Beentheredonethat]

I use the weight/height tape, about $3. I’m assuming they’re pretty accurate. handy to have around, and fun to keep track of how much they grow in height and weight.

[mtngirl]

Don’t over look doing fecal counts ref de-worming

JB is right about resistance. I found out the hard way. I lost a filly to colic New Years Day and the necropsy showed she had a significant presence of large strongyles and two tape worms. I had asked a vet ref doing a PowerPak on her, but based on the program I had been using, she didn’t recommend it at that time. Big mistake on my part.

She had been wormed religously every 6 weeks, alternating double doses of fenbendazole and pyrantel pamoate and had Zimectrin Gold 3 weeks prior to her colic.

As soon as I brought the new colt home he was given a PowerPak, followed 6 weeks later with Zimectrin Gold and fecal count was done. I was told he tested “clean”.

[stoicfish]

I was asked to bring my mare and foal in for a Nutrena presentation. There was a scale available and they also had a tape. The mare tapped in at 1800 but weighed in at 1600. The little guy at 9 months taped in at around 800 and weighed about 800.
I know most some of the wormers have a large safety zone so it would be better to over guess then under.

[JB]

@Beentheredonethat;4876694

I use the weight/height tape, about $3. I’m assuming they’re pretty accurate. handy to have around, and fun to keep track of how much they grow in height and weight.

Nope, sorry, never trust the weigh tape. They can be off as much as 200lb+ in adult horses, though I don’t know the range of off-ness in foals. Remember too that the heartgirth of a foal is very disproportionate to his whole body size.

they’re useful for tracking weight changes, up or down, but don’t rely on them for accurate enough weight for deworming.

[Beentheredonethat]

JB–So what do you do? It seems the formula is pretty much the same as the weight tape. I’m assuming most people, me included, don’t have the possibility of an actual scale.

[JB]

I use a formula for the adult horses. I don’t trust the weight tapes until I can prove that for a given horse, weighed on a scale, it’s pretty darn accurate.

My TB gelding was pretty dead on scale vs tape.

But my WB gelding is not - scale puts him higher than the tape.

So, I’d do the same for the babies - formulas.

[stoicfish]

Beenthere- most wormers have a safety margin. And then there is the little guy managing to spit some out because he moved his head when you were giving it to him. Benzimidazoles (panacur) has a really big margin, like you could be 100 pds off a young horse and still be ok. Ivermectin is not quite as safe but still a larger margin. But ask your vet. I would not use Quest on mime.

[everafterfarm]

totally agree. You can be a bit off on the wormer weight and not hurt baby. I do every month rotating until baby is safely old enough to go on the same program as the adults sometime between weaning and 1 yr, which is daily with iver paste 2 times a year. Fecals only cost like 15 bucks too and are well worth it to keep baby healthy. worms can take one out so fast!

I noticed my vet has a whole different vac shecdule now than he did when my 3yr old was born. Since my mare was well vacced, baby is good until he’s 5 or 6 months old and then you have to rebooster them a month or two later and some 1 more time. Like someone else mentioned location can make it differnt too. I happen to be in FL.

[Indy-lou]

Regional differences are huge, coupled with how horses are stabled. If you live in the South, have irrigated pasture on land that has housed horses for a long time, don’t manage your pastures by picking up manure, etc. you will have far more parasites than someone who keeps horses in a dry lot, picks up every manure pile and has winters with snow, and is farming land that hasn’t had horses on it for a long history. Two opposite examples, but it matters in terms of parasite load. You have to look at the big picture, and no one size fits all in protocol, IMO. Do fecal counts over time to get a better picture of your situation.

[JB]

@stoicfish;4878789

Benzimidazoles (panacur) has a really big margin, like you could be 100 pds off a young horse and still be ok.

Fenbendazole is quite safe double dosed, and SHOULD be double dosed, never single-dosed, for foals. Single doses have too wide-spread, high resistance issues. Double doses will kill ascarids though. The same goes for pyrantel pamoate (ie Strongid paste)

Ivermectin is not quite as safe but still a larger margin. But ask your vet. I would not use Quest on mime.

Ivermectin has about a 20x safety margin Not that I’d DO that :eek: but the point is you aren’t causing harm if you “overdose” by a couple hundred pounds

Definitely don’t use Quest (moxidectin) on a mini or anything under a year.

[JB]

Great post Indy-Lou!

[Beentheredonethat]

JB–Please explain double dosing. Do you mean double the weight, or do it two days in a row?

So, for example, if you were on a month for fenbendazole, would you give a 150 pound foal a 300 pound dose, or a 150 pound dose two days in a row?

Obviously where you are and living situations will always make the difference. I’m just trying to get clearly what everyone is saying and perhaps explore new things I do not know about.

Thanks!

[stoicfish]

The BZD group of drugs is currently represented by Panacur, Safe-Guard, Benzelmin, and Anthelcide E.Q., all of which are effective against ascarids at a dosage of 10 mg/kg. Interestingly, Panacur (fenbendazole) is labeled for use in foals at 10 mg/kg, but the indicated dosage for mature horses is only 5 mg/kg. Why should foals get a proportionally higher amount of drug than their dams? The difference isn’t any age-specific differences in the metabolism of fenbendazole by horses, but age differences in their susceptibility to parasites. All target parasites except P. equorum are susceptible to fenbendazole at 5 mg/kg, but a higher dosage (10 mg/kg) is needed to kill ascarids. With adult horses being immune to ascarids, there is no need to treat them with the higher dosage; only foals harbor the one parasite that requires a bigger gun.

from http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=966

and because I needed to do my homework at one point http://chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=234211

[Beentheredonethat]

Thank you, Stoic. Useful. That’s interesting about treating ascarids in foals. It’s a different idea in treatment from adults. I got it down, though I’ll have to read it again when I’m not so tired!

[JB]

Yep that’s the reason. There is a larvicidal dose of a dewormer, and there is a therapeutic dose. The latter is, typically, doubling the dose. Depending on the chemical, double-dosing may kill a different parasite, which is the case with fenbendazole and pyrantel pamoate.

It used to be that single doses of ivermectin were effective against ascarids. In some cases, it still is. But often now it is not, but double-dosing fen or pp still is.

It’s not that treatment is different for foals vs adults - if an adult horse had ascarids, you’d have to treat him the same way. The difference is that most horses develop immunity to ascarids by age 2, so typically the adult horse just doesn’t have them, or not to any degree as to be concerning. Most of what they have would be killed anyway by using ivermectin, Power Packs, or double-dosing pyrantel pamote for tapeworms.

Double-dosing ALWAYS means giving a 300lb dose to a 150lb foal, 2000lb dose to a 1000lb horse, etc. Always by weight.

The “power pack” is double-dosing fenbendazole for 5 days in a row. Lots of good things happen there - kills ascarids (would totally annihilate them, actually LOL), kills encysted strongyles, kills a good bit of adult strongyles, etc.

[feather_river]

I worm with Fenbendazole [panacur/safeguard] at 2, 5 & 9 mos. After that, they will get an ivermectin product at about 12 mos.

I do not believe in overworming, as I follow the advice from numerous vets who say do not overworm–allow the foal to build parasite resistance. Now this does not mean do not worm, so I ‘moderately’ worm. And I check their poop piles after each worming.

And of course, each horse is different. I have had one or two who have worms visible in their poop pile as a 5 year old every time I worm every 60 days [I normally worm the general population 3 times a year–twice with Quest and once with an ivermectin product].

I think you need to be sensible, and the geography of every place is different both as to the area of the country [weather, seasonal temperatures, etc] and as to the prior use of your fields.

And if you keep a horse in a barn and stall all day long, I don’t know what to tell you.