Best time of day for worming - sorry if sounds daft

NiceChristmasBaubles

NiceChristmasBaubles

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Just a quick question which I hope someone can help with.

I have my two packs of Pramox ready and waiting so I can worm my two ponies for encysted and tape (I do worm counts the rest of the year with Westgate and poo pick daily).

They are in at night and out in the day.

For those of you who have found encysted worms after worming, how long did they take to come out. I would rather know which one of mine (if any) have the worms so would like to be able to worm so that it is more likely any encysted worms would be expelled overnight. Their droppings are pretty similar and while I tend to know roughly which pile belongs to who in the field I wouldn't like to guarantee it.

Sorry if this is a daft question, but would you recommend worming (a) at tea time (b) at morning turn out time or (c) it doesn't matter because ponies 'movements' work at different rates or worms will be expelled across a 24 hour or more period.

Many thanks. :)
 
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I saw a mass of half inch long tiny thin bright red worms in the horse that I gave it to the day after he was given it. The other horse had a disgusting big fat bot worm instead :eek: As far as I remember, I gave it to them at tea-time.
 
cptrayes said:
I saw a mass of half inch long tiny thin bright red worms in the horse that I gave it to the day after he was given it. The other horse had a disgusting big fat bot worm instead :eek: As far as I remember, I gave it to them at tea-time.
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Thanks cptrayes, :eek: indeed! Having read all the recent threads about worming I am trying to really think about my worming programme rather than just shoving something in every 3 months and assuming it's doing the right job. :)
 
The interesting thing was that both horses were kept together all the time, fed the same, same work, same size, similar breeding etc. But one had a huge number of little red worms and I saw no bots. The other had at least the one bot, but I saw no red worms, and I took his poo to bits looking for them.

It just goes to show that a one-size-fits-all policy for worming isn't necessary and may actually be wrong.
 
As someone has already said, you won't see the encysted red worms as they would be far too small. They are immature lavae.
The worms in the photo are adult redworms, they just don't look adult because they are so tiny! Red worms don't get any bigger than that. It's amazing something so tiny can do so much damage.

It's not unusual to not find many redworms in the droppings this time of year. This doesn't mean your horse doesn't have redworms, it's just that there are less adults in the gut over the winter. All their babies are hiding in the gut wall waiting to emerge in the spring!

If you poo pick and you have no eggs seen in your worm counts from westgates, you are unlikely to have a red worm problem

It's worth mentioning that every little bit of poo must be picked up though. I have seen a worm count with 16,000 eggs per gram! When you think how little a gram is, you will never pick up all of the poo off the field, so there is always some risk.

If you worm a horse say at tea time and it has a reasonable redworm burden, you will find worms in the poos the following morning in its stable.
 
When I got my new lad I gave him Pramox in the afternoon, by the next morning I found this!
DSC_0428-1.jpg


he passed redworms for 48 hours after treatment - better out than in and the wormer did its job with no ill effects on the horse. He had an enhanced worming programme and a very close eye on him for the following year, this year he is on counts and encysted and tapeworm treatment only like my other 2.
 
nikicb said:
I'm sorry if I don't appear very knowledgable, but I was basing my question on the picture posted in this thread.....

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=10370274#post10370274
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Alf's famous worms!!! They are adult small redworm - you wont see the larvae in the droppings at all. Over the winter they encyst into the gut wall (hypobiotic stage) ready to emerge en masse in the spring doing alot of damage as they do so, hence killing them while in their hypobiotic state.
 
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