Worming and worm counts

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melissa1971

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Hi, I have always in the past wormed my horses every 12 weeks, at the beggining of this year our vets started doing egg counts where you just drop them a sample of for £5. and they reccommended this insead of just worming then going by the results worm if need be.

So the last count came back ok this time one out of the mares field (3 in there) and 1 out of the geldings field (3 in there) needed worming,

so im wondering how reliable are the egg counts and what do you do, do you follow a worming plan, if so could you reccomend one, or do you trust the egg counts. thanks.
 
Trust the egg counts! The whole point of egg counts is so that you know which horses need worming and which don't. If, for example, you hadn't done egg counts this time but simply wormed all 6 horses, then in reality 4 of the horses would have had an unneccessary dose of wormer, which in turn would contribute to them developing resistance. If you just continue doing worm counts you may find that it is only that one mare and gelding who produce the majority of the worm burden, while the other horses have very few worms themselves.
 
Trust the worm counts. It may seem odd that just one needed worming,but there are many reasons why this may have happened.
 
Hi I use Abbeygate for egg counts, as everyone has said - trust the counts! The only things they will not pick up are tape, small encysted and bots, therefore I use Equimax and 5 day over the autum to spring period. But get a count BEFORE worming or you may get false negatives, leave 12 wk after worming before counting. Your vet should advise. Westgate and Abbey both have web pages, have a read to explain.
 
Hehe, sorry, had to laugh, it's either Abbey Diagnostics or Westgate, not Abbeygate
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