Worms in my horses poo!!! OMG - what are they? pics

[VictoriaEDT]

All my horses were wormed with Pramox in Jan 09 and then had a worm count in may (all clear and <50). I muck pick every 2-3 days and they are out at night. Poo in their stable seems fine but this morning i found this in the field (so dont know which horse it is from)!

First i thought must be maggots but you pick the poo up and break it and the dropping is infested

and theyr really dont look like maggots close up
About to go to Countrywide to get some wormer - which one though? would have gone for equest.

 

[Natch]

Don't panic! They look the same as when we has this problem, and it turned out to be dung beetle lavae, which get into the poo after it has left the horse!

We panicked when we saw this and other worms in horses' poo, panic bought wormers galore, but puzzled when test results came back no worms. Rang the testing company up and apparently its a common thing for horse owners to panic about, but if you see live worms in poo, as a general rule they have got there since it left the horse. A horse with a worm burden will have eggs in the poo and the occasional dead worm, but won't normally expel live ones. Hope that puts your mind at rest

Suggest that you a)bring into a stable or onto a yard and wait until you can get a fresh specimin to examine!

and b) send a sample off to a poo testing company for your own peace of mind

 

[VictoriaEDT]

phew thank christ for that! I just got a rollocking off my mum for not managing the horses properly! I thought i did - usually v good with this sort of thing! Thanks

 

[Shay]

Ditto. My first degree is in parasitology so I do have some background in this. Mammals just don't pass quantities of live worms like this. The whole point of a worm's existence is to stay inside the host - not leave. There are some drugs which paralyse worms which then pass out of the horse to die - but they aren't in common use and anyway you'd have had to have adminstered it in the last 12 - 24 hours which you haven't. This is most likely to be an insect larvae of some form.

But if you're still worried get a faecal egg count done.