Advice on a horse with worms please

monstermunch

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Hi all, A new livery arrived at our yard on tueday. it was wormed with equimax and did indeed have worms (not red worms though). I was advised by someone to then put him on a 5 day course of panacur but someone else then advised against it. We have group grazing so obviously we don't want to put this horse out with others until he is clear. He has no worms in his poo now. So my question is how long should it be before we turn him out with the others or should he have another dose of wormer. Conflicting opnions has stumped me a little bit.
Thanks
 
The acting ingredient in Panacur is fenbendazole, and has a worryingly high resistance rate, therefore it's best avoided unless specifically prescribed by a vet.
Personally, I would wait a week after the first dose then dose again with something like Pyratape, just to make sure.
 
You have used a good enough wormer now to do the job - so long as dosed right you will have killed more or less everything in there. (the ivermectin bit does roundworms lungworm and bots, the praziquantel does tapeworm)

What did the worms look like? Were they the big white chewing gummy looking ones? If so these are ascarids and pretty much every wormer kills them. They usually affect youngsters and they get a good immunity to ascarids as they grow up (~2 yo)

Best advice would be to keep him off pasture for 3 days then turn out (means you chuck all the dead worms and any remaining eggs on the muck heap)- worm egg count in 6-8 weeks and treat according to results.

I know I keep mentioning it but I really think www.smartworming.co.uk is brill - if you put your horse on the planner and when you wormed etc it sends email reminders when you should be worming or worm egg counting etc - there's some good advice and info on there too.

Good luck with new ned :)
 
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If your new livery has had Equimax then he will be no threat to any grazing companions at present. However, he should be wormed with Equest in a couple of months to treat any encysted stages of redworm. Next step would be a worm count in the spring and if a good result no need to worm at that time.

What sort of worms did you see? Redworm are the most common. If it was only pinworm, very commonly seen, then they are not a real health threat but are very hard to get rid of.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks everyone. it was most definately not red worm nor chewing gum white looking worms. they were tiny neutral looking worms which I would assume were something like pin worms. It seems easier to get advice when it is blatently red worm that a horse has but these two different opinions were from so called experts. thank you again. He has 7 days seperated and seems worm free so i will turn him out with others and then re worm in a few weeks when the others are due.
 
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