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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1069
 
Location: Oklahoma | I've always given my horses dewormers about every 2 months, and alternated which types, making sure I give a boticide 2x a year (Ivermectin, Quest, etc.). And if they were on daily Strongid I read to still give a boticide 2x/yr (every 6 mos), and to take them off of the daily wormer for a week when you give them the Ivermection/Quest.
I just heard that some people give safeguard power doses 3x a year, followed by 3 other tubes of dewormer 3 weeks apart (all 3 ivermectin type wormers). Am I the only one who thinks this is over kill? It just seems like a whole lot to me, and a good way to make one resistant. So curious now to see what other people do routinely. And what you do if you get a wormy horse. |
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  Neat Freak
Posts: 11216
 
Location: Wonderful Wyoming | I think if you are going to deworm that often, it is best to get a vet to do a fecal and see what worms you have and if you need to deworm at that time. It is a poison and people can deworm too often.
99% of our horses are in pasture, HUGE pastures, so we deworm spring and fall. When we have done fecals in the past, they really didn't need done that often. We rotate as well. Spring depends on what is on sale and fall is ivermectin to get rid of bots. The horses in the corral are done 3-4 months and I usually give them the good stuff. Quest Plus and rotate with something else. It's usually just my show horse and husbands antique gelding in the corral though. |
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 IMA No Hair Style Gal
Posts: 2594
 
| I used to deworm every two to three months.
Then I learned that was not the ideal thing to do.
I deworm about three times a year. Every four months I do a fecal.
My counts always tend to be on the lower side of needing to be dewormed.
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 464
| Deworming with out a fecal test is just medicating for no reason, and throwing away money. Many parasites are becoming resistant to anthelmentics. Over doing it just makes the issue worse. |
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 "Drank the Kool Aid"
Posts: 5496
Location: Iowa, LA | I used to deworm like you. It was a huge waste of my money and I was poisoning my horses for no reason! Now that I do fecals (3-4x a year at $15/horse) I've realized that I was doing it all wrong and only contributing to wormer resistance! In the past year I have not had ONE fecal come back so high that I needed to worm! However! I still worm at least once per year for encysted strongyles. Those will not show in a fecal. My horses are kept on 20 acres and I no longer have more than 4 horses, so over-grazing or forcing them to eat near potty areas is not an issue. I would talk to your vet about your pasture situation and start doing fecals to determine how/with what you deworm. |
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"Drank the Kool Aid"
Posts: 5496
Location: Iowa, LA | Here is a good article discussing egg counts and seasons etc:
http://vetmed.tamu.edu/news/pet-talk/texas-am-parasitologist-offers-suggestions-for-horse-deworming-treatments-in-texas#.Ut9ANHhOK0c
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1069
Location: Oklahoma | Very interesting, thank you for all the input.
I had just never heard of power packing that often before, most of mine have never had a power pack. I've only had one horse fecal tested that was thin and had dull hair, but hers was negative.
I will get mine tested and see what they show up.
How about horses that are up in stalls with runs, or very small pastures? I've head of them being dewormed as often as every 30 days. |
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"Drank the Kool Aid"
Posts: 5496
Location: Iowa, LA | cowgirljdc - 2014-01-21 10:08 PM Very interesting, thank you for all the input.
I had just never heard of power packing that often before, most of mine have never had a power pack. I've only had one horse fecal tested that was thin and had dull hair, but hers was negative.
I will get mine tested and see what they show up.
How about horses that are up in stalls with runs, or very small pastures? I've head of them being dewormed as often as every 30 days.
I can tell you that of the four I had tested, 1 was on 24/7 turnout, 1 on 50/50 turnout, and two were kept in a dry lot 50/50 (stalled 50%) and only one came back consistently higher in egg counts and the highest his egg count ever was, was around 100. Vet said not to deworm unless it was near 500 (if I remember correctly) so even he was no where near that! The others were all super low counts...0-50. Hope that helps! |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1069
Location: Oklahoma | annemarea - 2014-01-21 10:19 PM cowgirljdc - 2014-01-21 10:08 PM Very interesting, thank you for all the input.
I had just never heard of power packing that often before, most of mine have never had a power pack. I've only had one horse fecal tested that was thin and had dull hair, but hers was negative.
I will get mine tested and see what they show up.
How about horses that are up in stalls with runs, or very small pastures? I've head of them being dewormed as often as every 30 days. I can tell you that of the four I had tested, 1 was on 24/7 turnout, 1 on 50/50 turnout, and two were kept in a dry lot 50/50 (stalled 50%) and only one came back consistently higher in egg counts and the highest his egg count ever was, was around 100. Vet said not to deworm unless it was near 500 (if I remember correctly) so even he was no where near that! The others were all super low counts...0-50. Hope that helps!
Thanks for the help!
I didn't know they could be fine with some worm count.
So one other thing, what if you see worms in their manure? I know that's happened to us a couple times when they were overdue. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1069
Location: Oklahoma | And how often do you get a fecal count? |
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"Drank the Kool Aid"
Posts: 5496
Location: Iowa, LA | cowgirljdc - 2014-01-21 10:34 PM annemarea - 2014-01-21 10:19 PM cowgirljdc - 2014-01-21 10:08 PM Very interesting, thank you for all the input.
I had just never heard of power packing that often before, most of mine have never had a power pack. I've only had one horse fecal tested that was thin and had dull hair, but hers was negative.
I will get mine tested and see what they show up.
How about horses that are up in stalls with runs, or very small pastures? I've head of them being dewormed as often as every 30 days. I can tell you that of the four I had tested, 1 was on 24/7 turnout, 1 on 50/50 turnout, and two were kept in a dry lot 50/50 (stalled 50%) and only one came back consistently higher in egg counts and the highest his egg count ever was, was around 100. Vet said not to deworm unless it was near 500 (if I remember correctly) so even he was no where near that! The others were all super low counts...0-50. Hope that helps!
I didn't know they could be fine with some worm count.
So one other thing, what if you see worms in their manure? I know that's happened to us a couple times when they were overdue.
Was it Tape worms? Those are super easy to see as they are white, flat worms. My vet recommends deworming once a year for them, so I use Quest Plus. That takes care of the encysted and tapes. As far as how often and when to run fecals, your vet would be best to consult with on that because time of year, freezes, last deworming, etc all needs to be taken into consideration. I will search for an article someone had posted a few years ago that explains how long after deworming you want to wait to run fecals. As far as egg counts, there is an acceptable range and for some reason 500 is sticking in my head! I want to say any less than that, they do not recommend deworming. You will find that certain horses tend to carry more. In my case, it's my 4 yr old gelding. His numbers will be consistently higher than the other 3. |
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"Drank the Kool Aid"
Posts: 5496
Location: Iowa, LA | Here is an excellent thread with a lot of great info on using fecals.
http://www.horsegroomingsupplies.com/horse-forums/whats-your-deworming-schedule-448865.html |
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 I hate cooking and cleaning
Posts: 3314
Location: Jersey Girl | I do a fecal every spring and deworm based on that. In the fall they do get wormed with a broad spectrum wormer (one that gets tape worm as well). |
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 Midget Lover
Location: Kentucky | I deworm based on the results of fecals, so sometimes I may only deworm once or twice a year. |
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 Over Informed
Posts: 5372
Location: West Tennessee | Possibly a dumb question -- but do you have to do the fecals through your vet? Or can you send them in yourself? ie: how does it all work? |
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Midget Lover
Location: Kentucky | dme0324 - 2014-01-22 8:58 AM
Possibly a dumb question -- but do you have to do the fecals through your vet? Or can you send them in yourself? ie: how does it all work?
I just take a baggie of fresh poo into my vet. It only takes a few minutes. |
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 The BHW Book Worm
Posts: 1768
| I deworm once a year after we have a couple days of really good freeze out weather. then the rest of the year they are on performance detox wich has diatomaceous earth in it that physically cuts up parasites so there is NO harm to horse or adding to the resistance of the parasites. I also get a fecal done before just to make sure and its still clear when I worm but we have a TON of bot flies around here and I pretty much do it just for them they don't show. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1069
Location: Oklahoma | Thistle2011 - 2014-01-22 8:04 AM
I deworm once a year after we have a couple days of really good freeze out weather. then the rest of the year they are on performance detox wich has diatomaceous earth in it that physically cuts up parasites so there is NO harm to horse or adding to the resistance of the parasites. I also get a fecal done before just to make sure and its still clear when I worm but we have a TON of bot flies around here and I pretty much do it just for them they don't show.
Curious where you live that they are bad, I'm in Oklahoma. |
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