Worming advice please!

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dancingkris

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Hoping someone can give me some advice until I speak to my vet in the morning.

I have 3 horses who all graze the same paddocks and have the same worming management programme. My paddocks are poo picked daily (I'm fanatical about it!) and worm counts are done regularly. As a result the counts have always been low and I've never had to worm for anything other than tapeworm (equitape) for the past few years.

I sent my last worm count off on Friday and got the results yesterday. 2 out of the 3 have low counts and no action needed but one has a medium count. I'm a bit surprised as he's on the same field as the others and nothing has changed recently.

Anyway I'm not sure what product to worm him with - a friend's horse has just had a terrible reaction to pramox so I'm not keen on using it. They are all due for tapeworm so the clear ones will get Equitape but not sure for the other one? I will call my vet to discuss but wondered if anyone could help in the meantime. Thanks!
 
Sometimes it does happen, perhaps pony was having a bit of an off period and a low immune system.

I would speak to the worm count company as they are usually very knowledgeable :)
 
They won't advise which wormer to use unfortunately - just advised I speak to my vet. I have used a different company this time - maybe not a great move in hindsight!
 
dancingkris said:
Hoping someone can give me some advice until I speak to my vet in the morning.



Anyway I'm not sure what product to worm him with - a friend's horse has just had a terrible reaction to pramox so I'm not keen on using it. They are all due for tapeworm so the clear ones will get Equitape but not sure for the other one? I will call my vet to discuss but wondered if anyone could help in the meantime. Thanks!
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I'd steer clear of the Pramox. My horse was very poorly after I used this wormer and my vet told me that a lot of his clients horses had also reacted badly to Pramox.

I'm guessing that the only thing you can do is worm the affected horse with an ivermectin based wormer (assuming the medium count was for a type of worm that is treated with ivermectin), then worm him/her for tapeworm along with the others, preferably with a 2 - 3 week gap between the wormers.

Or you could send another dung sample (from the affected horse) off for a 'second opinion'. Bearing in mind that only a small sample of dung is analysed, it could just be that your initial sample had a few more eggs in it than the remainder of the dropping.

It sounds as though you have a really good system in place and it's nice that your horses don't need frequent worming.
 
Worm the medium count now with just normal round worm then do them all fro tape in 2/.3 weeks time.

Does the medium count horse graze on verges/ at shows? If not I'd suspect a release of encysted worms (common this time of year) and make sure you treat carefully for them in the autumn - normal equest will do it (Paramox is just the added tapeworm bit) or 5 day panacure I think are the only two that will do the encysted ones.
 
I wouldn't worry about it - often individuals can be more susceptible than others so will have a higher worm burden. Often if they are younger that increases their chances of having them. It sounds like the regime you have at the moment is fantastic, so don't dwell on it too much - these things happen!

If they recommended you contact your vet to ask which wormer to use then that's what I'd do. Often all that means for us is a quick phone call to get their opinion - our vets are happy to do this, and I'm sure most would be too.
 
Worm the horse with an ivermectin wormer, then test them all with the new saliva test for tapeworm? Avoids both having to worm the affected horse twice in a short period (hopefully) and using a dual wormer. I was really impressed with how easy the saliva test is, providing you have the facilities to keep the horses off grass for half an hour.

If the affected horse is usually also a low count and nothing has changed I would probably be tempted to also stick him on a course of milk thistle, global herbs restore or something like that in case he is a bit run down for some reason.
 
How can a worm count company not advise you on which product to use? This is part of the service and a result is no use at all if you don't know what to do with it. I would doubt this a real lab with qualified staff.
 
Thanks for all your replies. Yes I am very disappointed with the company I used - that'll teach me to try and save a bit of money - definitely false economy. I won't be using them again and will stick to the company I used before.
 
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