which wormer please for unknown history

[myhorsefred]

Hi all, I've just bought a new horse and know nothing about his worming history (dealer didn't know).

Which wormer would you give please?

Normally I'd give a pramox in november once its gone cold, but yard owner is insisting he is wormed on arrival, so no time to do egg counts to target worming either.

thanks

 

[Wagtail]

Pramox may be too strong if he has a high worm burden. I would worm with Equest then after the first frost, I would give him an equitape.

 

[ester]

whereas I wouldn't give moxidectin at all to an unknown history. They would get panacur 5 day then a tape treatment.

 

[FestiveFuzz]

Agree with Ester, I have always started with panacur 5 day when worming something with unknown history.

 

[Tiddlypom]

whereas I wouldn't give moxidectin at all to an unknown history. They would get panacur 5 day then a tape treatment.

This. You could also collect poop for a worm count as he arrives even though the results will take a day or two to come back, then you'd know what he came with.

 

[DD]

Panacur 5 a day, then worm count and do the Equisal test for tapeworm.

 

[SEL]

My old vet advised panacur first then follow with equest pramox. Her view was panacur would shift the bulk of the worms but because there is known resistance equest was a better product - but it's too strong to use with a high worm burden.

She was normally an advocate of testing, but used to go straight for the drug approach if they were newbies with unknown history.

 

[Cecile]

You could go for Panacur Guard 5 day then follow up with Equimax a couple of weeks later

If you wanted to do a worm egg count, if the horse is kept near enough just go collect it or take samples as the horse is arriving off the lorry, drop it in at your vets and ask for a quick response, they can phone you fairly quickly with the results

I use a worm count on new arrivals as a resource never an authority only because if there is no known history of worming its possible to get a false negative as someone may of wormed the horse recently, which may give a false sense of security. I've also had people tell me the horse has been wormed when it hasn't

 

[Peregrine Falcon]

Panacur Guard 5 day or Strongid P double dose then Equest

 

[paddi22]

another one for panacur. we get random rescues in and it's the safest and gentlest to use

 

[myhorsefred]

Thank you very much everyone. Much appreciated. Always good advice in here! thank you.

 

[Follysmum]

I would worm count ( west gate labs) then worm accordingly to the results

 

[ester]

You would have to worm count several times in the next few weeks to have any sort of confidence in the results to make a decision not to treat.

 

[MagicMelon]

Id still do a worm and saliva count done now (sample taken before you worm) just so you know. Then Id probably just use a one-off wormer rather than a full on 5 day type one which I think is pretty strong to do on a horse who may have a very low worm burden. Does YO say how quickly you have to worm? Worm count results often come back within 5 days...

 

[ester]

Of course you can for interest, it is using it as a decision to treat or not which was stated that is the issue.

The whole point of the 5 day treatment is that it isn't strong compared to using a one-off wormer which risks flushing everything out to quickly and causing a colic, it is a more steady approach which is why it is still recommended for complete unknowns even though there is a significant level of resistance to fenbendazole.