Advice Regarding Donkeys and Lungworm

[Tierra]

Hey!

Advice again please

We acquired two donks last week when we moved into our new house. I also have a warmblood.

Atm, my warmblood is in the summer grazing and the donks in the winter grazing. We did ask the previous owner to worm the donkeys. However, given she'd not mucked out for months, they've not had their feet attended to and indeed, theyre not even good at picking up their feet (read: they just DONT), im somewhat sceptical as to whether these little guys have ever been wormed.

Ive done them tonight with Equest - which ive read is one of the few to tackle lung worms.

Jack was done about 4 weeks ago, but im not sure what with. He was on full livery and the wormers here are different.

Sooooooooo where do i go from here? I was wanting to get them all grazing together this weekend. Im now planning on putting this off slightly and getting my mum to send over some more equest so i can do jack.

Where do i go from here? Do i poo pick the winter grazing clean? We were planning on splitting the winter grazing with electric tape and introducing jack and the donkeys that way.

Any and all advice please ladies and gents

p.s. worming baby donk was hilarious. She sprinted round the stable gathering up some straw in her mouth. Im guessing she didnt like the taste ;p

 

[suestowford]

I don't know the answer but I bet The Donkey Sanctuary will. You can email them on enquiries@thedonkeysanctuary.com

 

[Tierra]

Bumping this. I have emailed the donkey sanctuary, but maybe some more people will see this today who have some knowledge of donks

 

[Shilasdair]

I'm not quite sure what you're asking....so have just found this detailed link for you (you'll have to sift through the cattle lungworm etc though).

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/120700.htm

S

 

[hussar]

Have a look at the Donkey Breed Society website and forum (www.donkeybreedsociety.co.uk) - all sorts of useful stuff there.

HHO member Donkeymad is also a great source of info.

 

[Tierra]

Sorry Shilasdair, you're right it wasnt clear.

When i initially posted about donkeys as companions for horses, there were numerous posts telling me not to graze them together due to the risk of lungworm being passed to my horse.

At present, they arent grazed together.

I wormed both donkeys with Equest last night as i read it was one of the few wormers that was effective in regards to lung worm.

Im really wondering where to go from here. Jack was wormed about 4 weeks ago but im not sure what with as he was on full livery at a danish yard and there wormers are quite different. Im planning on getting more equest sent over from the UK to worm jack.

Im wanting to integrate the donkeys and jack into one field. Im going to wait with this until jack is wormed with equest.

My plan was to poo pick the hell out of the fields before they go together. Will this, along with all three equines being wormed with equest be sufficient to ensure that IF they are carrying lungworm, it will be clear before i put them with my horse? Some sites still seem to imply that you should never graze the two together.

Does that make more sense? Im basically not wanting to give anything nasty to my horse from donkeys with a rather questionable history. (To add, the donkeys seem healthy. They dont cough or anything like that. But theyve been pets to quite a strange lady who i doubt has ever wormed them).

 

[NoCollection]

My mare caught lungworm from an apparently healthy donkey - then her cough turned into pneumonia and she was very poorly for a while.

The vet told us to worm both the mare and the donkey immediately and then to worm then again (I'm afraid that I can't remember how much later this was) but it was fine to graze them together from the first worming. This was some years ago, but the wormer that we used was Panacur.

 

[MurphysMinder]

I have always grazed our donkey with the ponies, and have had him since 1986. I just worm them all regularly with Equest. I think Strongid P also deals with lungworm but not quite sure, I know I used to use something else but can't remember what it was

I do poo pick the fields regularly too, so probably a good idea to do that if you are able to.

 

[Tierra]

Thats basically what i was looking to hear

Im pretty sure donkeymad said that they'd be ok if they were all wormed so i'll get jack done next week, poo pick and then put them out together

Thanks for all the input!

 

[Shilasdair]

Sorry, been out.
I'd suggest you just start a correct worming programme for Jack and donkeys respectively - and make sure you do Jack for tapeworm too...if the livery yard hasn't already.
Poo picking your fields will prevent any future eggs from the dung infecting your fields...but it will take a while for any worm larvae in the grass already to die off...so keep worming.
Hope this helps
S