Liver Fluke

Spiritedly

Spiritedly

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One of our ponies has been poorly for a few weeks, diarrhea and loss of appetite to start then mainly diarrhea and a disinterest in hay. The vet came out at the start and thought it was a bug so was advised to give it a bit of time as he didn't seem unwell in himself and antibiotics can cause worse scouring. He didn't improve so tried bio sponge and sent of a fecal sample. The bio sponge didn't do much but the fecal sample came back as positive for liver fluke! I have to admit I didn't even know what it was and have been googling like mad since the vet told me. The good news is he's showing no signs of having liver damage so we may have caught it early. We're now waiting for the treatment to come in...it's cattle treatment and my vets don't carry it... and hopefully he will improve once he's been given it.
He's not grazed with cattle but the field he was on when he started showing symptoms was very wet with a lot of standing water after the rain so it could possibly have been through that.
Has anyone else had a horse that has had this and how are they now?
 
Yes, last year all 6 of my ponies showed raised liver enzymes. I only knew about it because I was monitoring bloods monthly to check progress with trying to address muscle problems with selenium supplementation. All ponies looked very well throughout, and they did not have diarrhoea.

Anyway, it proved difficult to find the cause of the liver problems. During the summer a total of around 12 poo samples were tested for fluke, and came back negative. It wasn't til one of the ponies liver enzymes shot up (GGT up to around 2,300) that we sent one more poo sample off, and it came back positive for liver fluke. Just one egg in 3 grams of poo.

My vet spoke to David Sutton at Glasgow University, who has an interest in liver fluke in horses, and is seeing it more in recent years. David recommended using Fasinex, which is the flukicide licensed for cattle and sheep, but not for horses (there is no licensed flukicide for horses). He recommended to use it once, and then wait two weeks and dose again.

I tried giving it by syringe into the mouth, but it's a think milky liquid and it went everywhere except in the pony's mouth! So I tried just adding it to their feed which is feed balancer 500g, and a handful of chaff. Mixed in well, they all ate it enthusiastically, which made things easier.

None of them had any reaction or side effect from it.

Within a month, their liver enzyme levels in the blood had gone down by around a half, and they continued to decrease.

The land you describe with standing water is typical for flukey land, so if you can avoid that, so much the better. If that's not possible, you may just have to check bloods for raised liver enzymes from time to time, and use Fasinex if there are any problems. There is resistance developing to Fasinex, so it's probably best not to overuse it.

I had some more bloods done last month, 16 months after the liver problems first started, and all ponies are back in normal range for liver enzymes and function. Most of them were back to normal levels a few months ago.

Hope your pony does well.

Sarah
 
Thank you I actually feel better knowing that someone elses ponies have had it and are now okay.
The field with the standing water is their summer grazing and I think the problem was caused by the amount of rainfall in a short period of time so I'm hoping there won't be another episode...they're on winter fields now, except Harley who is exiled to the yard...but I will keep an eye on him next year when they go back and see if the vet will do periodic blood tests.
 
My horses had liver fluke this year, they were all looking very well until they foaled then lost weight quite quickly after foaling which is very unusual for them, and it happened one by one as they foaled between March and end of May. They mostly lost weight over their ribs and could not regain it, they all sweated a great deal in that hot weather we had, some were lethargic, all tired easily if they galloped up the field, one was very footy, another had bad hives. Their foals were not affected. Bloods showed they were anaemic with raised fibrinogen but normal WBC, normal liver enzymes and normal albumin. One did have slightly raised liver enzymes as in one over normal. Worm counts were negative and all of them had had equest in Feb and ivermectin on foaling. Vet said it was easier to treat for liver fluke than test for it so i dosed all but one with fasinex, they all ate it in their feeds even the fussy ones. After 10 days they all just looked slightly better whereas the untreated one looked worse, so she was treated and the others all had a second dose at 14 days. It took nearly 8 weeks for them to regain the weight but they did and all look okay now. I dosed all my other horses as well after as they must of all had them but the mares only looked so bad because they had come under stress foaling. I haven't dosed them again since but i'm thinking i probably should. The ground is wet here and was grazed by cattle and sheep 25 years ago but not since, but my haylage comes from a farmer who has told me he has a liver fluke problem on his farm. Liver fluke can apparently survive in wet haylage.
 
I didn't know that about haylage Silverfire. I don't normally feed it, they have hay, but I was thinking of getting him some to help his weight and energy levels but I don't think I'll bother now!
 
I read somewhere that they may be able to live on hay too! You should be okay feeding haylage, i don't know if it was definately the haylage that gave it to mine and it was very wet haylage last year. The farmer has made me dry haylage this year.
 
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