Sarah1
Well-Known Member
I've recently had this problem with my boy - sounds virtually same as your mare!
He had mild colic intermittantly for about a week so I had vet out, they did WEC and Elisa test and took blood for in house testing for enzymes.
WEC came back none but Elisa test showed a high burden of tapeworm so he had to have a double dose of Strongid P and now needs doing with Equimax (3 weeks after double dose).
I felt terrible as I am religious about worming and injections etc. but my vet told me that tapeworms come from a fox or dog crossing the pasture and even if I wormed my horse everyday as soon as he was turned out he'd be re-infecting himself as it is already in the pasture (our fields are fairly well managed but apparently it's common in areas of high fox population).
Anyway, on top of that his liver enzymes were raised and it showed liver damage due to an ascending infection from his tummy (due to worms? I don't know), vet said horses are like humans and can pick a tummy bug up same as we can so could have been a number of causes.
He had a 10 day course of anti-biotics, the vet came out and tested his bloods again and they had dropped but weren't normal so a week later they tested again, this time there was a significant decrease and they don't need to see him for 4-6 weeks and he can start working again.
So, don't worry too much I'm sure it won't be anything that a bit of rest, wormer and maybe anti-biotics can't sort out! The anti-biotics my boy had must have kick started his immune system and his body did the rest after his worm burden was under control!
He had mild colic intermittantly for about a week so I had vet out, they did WEC and Elisa test and took blood for in house testing for enzymes.
WEC came back none but Elisa test showed a high burden of tapeworm so he had to have a double dose of Strongid P and now needs doing with Equimax (3 weeks after double dose).
I felt terrible as I am religious about worming and injections etc. but my vet told me that tapeworms come from a fox or dog crossing the pasture and even if I wormed my horse everyday as soon as he was turned out he'd be re-infecting himself as it is already in the pasture (our fields are fairly well managed but apparently it's common in areas of high fox population).
Anyway, on top of that his liver enzymes were raised and it showed liver damage due to an ascending infection from his tummy (due to worms? I don't know), vet said horses are like humans and can pick a tummy bug up same as we can so could have been a number of causes.
He had a 10 day course of anti-biotics, the vet came out and tested his bloods again and they had dropped but weren't normal so a week later they tested again, this time there was a significant decrease and they don't need to see him for 4-6 weeks and he can start working again.
So, don't worry too much I'm sure it won't be anything that a bit of rest, wormer and maybe anti-biotics can't sort out! The anti-biotics my boy had must have kick started his immune system and his body did the rest after his worm burden was under control!