Horse worming is an essential part of keeping horses happy and healthy. Regular worm egg counts are recommended for all horses, and worming should be carried out when necessary, using the right product. This blog article aims to answer the question: How often should I worm my horse?
We advise that most healthy horses require worm egg counts in Spring, Summer and Autumn and a broad-spectrum wormer in Winter. We promote selective worming programmes to ensure your horses are wormed when needed but not given drugs unnecessarily. This contributes to the sustainable use of wormers, which should help limit parasite resistance to wormers.
Parasite control in horses is key to their wellbeing and performance. Worm infestation can cause irreversible internal damage, colic and long-term health problems.
The traditional approach to parasite control was frequent treatment with anthelmintics (wormers) for all horses on the yard, however the increasing levels of anthelmintic resistance are becoming a problem, and a new approach is required.
Parasite resistance is a term used when a particular species of parasite, that was previously eliminated by a particular drug, is no longer eliminated by that drug. Our traditional overuse of anthelmintics has seen an increase in the resistant population of parasites and there are no new anthelmintic drugs on the horizon.
If we continue to overuse wormers, this problem will continue to escalate. Ultimately, this could lead to a situation where we have no effective anthelmintics to treat horses with large worm burdens.
Worm egg counts are used to determine whether your horse genuinely needs worming. Only those with a high parasite burden require treatment, as a normal, healthy horse can manage a low parasite burden with no detrimental effects on their health. The idea behind this is to reduce parasite resistance and overuse of anthelmintics.
Avonvale Equine Vet Practice offer an annual worm control package, which enables owners to worm their horses effectively without overusing wormers. Our annual worm control package includes 3 worm egg counts, 1 weigh tape, 1 Equest Pramox wormer and unlimited advice from our independent equine vets. Call us on 01295 670 501 for more information.
