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Strategic Deworming...The New School of Thought When is comes to dewonning many horses owners believe more is better. For many years, horse owners have used the standard 4-6 weeks dewonning protocol with an anthelmintic (dewonner) of choice. Most horse owners rotate anthelmintics while others find what seems to work and stick with it. Equine scientists have recently been cautioned that these current dewonning strategies may cause parasite resistance for our horses. Over the last 40 years, researchers have witnessed parasite resistance to anthelmintics in sheep, goats, and cattle. It is only natural to assume that the same would happen in horses. There have been many studies documenting drug resistance on equine fanns with a history of frequent dewonning, especially when using the same class of dewonner, rather than rotating. Because there are no new anthelmintic drugs on the horizon preventing parasite drug resistance must be a priority for veterinarians and horse owners. There is not a universal or "cookbook" dewonning protocol available since parasite prevalence depends on so many factors (geographic location, pasture exposure and rotation, individual horse immunity, etc.). There are several suggested dewonning protocols that have recently been made. You as a horse owner should educate yourself on the various protocols and work with your veterinarian to detennine what works best for your farm. A valuable tool your veterinarian can use when planning a dewonning strategy for your horse fann is a fecal egg count. Fecal egg counts can be used to identify what types of wonns infest your horse, the shedding status of your horse and with repeated use can help identify anthelmintic resistance. Initially, a fecal egg count should be perfonned on all horses on the premises. Jfyou have a high number of horses you can sample horses from different categories (weanlings, yearlings, 2 year olds, adult horses, broodmares, geriatric, etc). When the fecal egg count results are available, your veterinarian can classify your horses into I of 3 shedding categories; low, medium and high. The cut off number for these categories is not universally agreed upon but are similar. Horses that fall in the low shedding category will have less than 250 Eggs Per Gram, medium shedders 250-500
This article was originally published in Horse & Pony magazine and is reprinted with their permission. |
