Worms and curious worm counts questions

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Crazydancer

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We're puzzled, can anyone shed some light?

I'm on a small yard, 10 horses, mainly oldies and youngsters, all live out 24/7. Grazing was established by YO when she bought the land approx 5 years ago, it had been agricultural until then. We poo-pick, and 3 out of 4 owners do this on a daily/every other day basis, the 4th owner does once a week. We are all on our own grazing, horses stay in same pairs/groups.

We have worm counts done, and these have until now come back low, mainly in the 'below 50/no eggs seen in this sample' category.

We did the 5 day Panacur Guard wormer back in Feb/March time.

Counts from 2 weeks ago have come back with some horses increased to 350 eggs, and most worrying, my mare who arrive just over a year ago was 1150.
We thought the owner who poo-picked every week would be higher, as she has not been as thorough as she should this winter, and YO had spoken to her, but her horses are still very low.

My mare was given a double dose of wormer (can't remember what, but on YO recommendation) when she arrived, and has had the 5 day Panacur guard, but is still very high, so I can't figure that out, especially as she's been on the same pasture as my gelding, who's count was 'no eggs seen'! Unfortunately I don't have a comparison count from last year for her.

Does anyone know why she would be so high still?
Or why the 3 youngsters who are all together have gone up from low/no eggs' to 250/350?
If we'd been lazy with the poo-picking I'd understand, or if there was a worm problem with the grazing, but neither apply!! We're stumped. Any ideas?
:confused:
 
You might have had an emergence of encysted red worm.
Panacur Guard is supposed to help that but there is known resistance.

I'd probably hit them with an equest just to be sure.
 
Any Donkey's in there or been in there that could be spreading worms you haven't wormed against?

Also if your mare was not done properly first and only wormed while out grazing and not brought in she'll just empty the worms on to the ground for both to have.

Pan
 
ihatework said:
You might have had an emergence of encysted red worm.
Panacur Guard is supposed to help that but there is known resistance.

I'd probably hit them with an equest just to be sure.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm pretty sure Equest Pramox was used last year, but I think we will be using this again now.
 
PandorasJar said:
Any Donkey's in there or been in there that could be spreading worms you haven't wormed against?

Also if your mare was not done properly first and only wormed while out grazing and not brought in she'll just empty the worms on to the ground for both to have.

Pan
Click to expand...

Fresh grazing. No previous grazing animals on the land. :confused:

Mare was in small containment paddock for first week, poo-picked twice daily. This area now used to school, and has not been used to graze.
ETA - if this had been on her current grazing, I would have expected my gelding's count to go up too - which it hasn't.
 
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Thanks for the feedback, I did wonder if we'd missed something glaringly obvious, but it seems not..... We have a great YO who I know would have done reseach to come up with her worming programme, and having had several years of very low counts, we were thinking we were doing a great job, so this count has really thrown us. :(
 
I started egg counts last year and had 2 'no eggs' counts, then my latest one came back with 4200 eggs per gram!!! I was stunned.
I poo pick the field clean every week and my mare seems fit and well (luckily)
Have just wormed with Panacur (I think) and will do another egg count in 12 weeks.
My only thought is that when we rotate fields we don't always move onto a clean field (ie the last occupant hasn't poo picked)
 
Having wormed on the Equest/Pramox cycle for 18months, I decided to use Westgate to work out a worming routine using counts. My girls came back clear on 3 consecutive tests, and then had an equitape in the winter. My younger mare was in foal, and came back with a clear count at the end of her gestation, but had an ivermectin just before foaling anyway, to protect the foal as much as her, but still came back with a 250epg count when the foal was about a month old. When I asked Westgate about this, aparantly postpartum worm burden can be very high even if a clear count has been seen previously....Youngsters are also much more susseptable to worms, is it possible that the youngsters (that you say are showing high counts now) have infected the rest of the paddocks? Remember, worms can travel 40m on a warm day apparantly!
 
Thanks Rosehip, that's interesting about the youngsters - all the increased counts are for them, a 2 yr old, 2 x 3yr olds and my mare who's just 5. All the rest are 20 yrs +.

I think the YO was waiting for the results to give one of the liveries a rocket as she hasn't pulled her weight lately, but her's came back low! :o But as you mentioned, worms can travel, and the youngsters paddock, and my paddock are either side of hers.
 
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