TM, why not just buy the daily wormer??
There, are incidentally, a few problems with daily wormers!
The bottom line is that we are never, ever going to find a wormer that is totally risk free,
and works.
Fenbendazole is as near as you get, and it has a high resistance problem, and should not be counted on to remove anything except encysteds.
Quest says it gets rid of encysteds, but, if you read the small print (and yes, I always do) it actually is only proven to get rid of around 80% of the, whereas the 5 day Fenbendazole course gets rid of 99.9%, near enough, in fact, to allow it to claim it gets rid of "all" encysteds, over here, and advertising is strictly regulated.
Moxidectin has two problems:
It has a low "overdose" rating, which is only X4
It is held in the FAT, the body fat of your horse, and released slowly.
If you have a look back through the last months threads on here you will see that a lot of Mini people are paranoid about their Mini carrying fat. Now, weigh that horses, and dose it with the correct amount, for it's weight, of Moxidectin, and, in fact, as it does not have the body fat to store the drug, it will be released into the bloodstream in one go, effectively overdosing, possibly fatally, your horses.
Add to this the problem that a lot of Minis weigh very little anyway, so you are dealing with a tiny amount, and you can see how fatalities occur.
The fatalities in Minis have
not been caused by overdosing, the one that was recorded in heart rending detail on this Forum had it's weight taken as accurately as is possible for a layman.
Now, having said all that, before I knew of the problems, I used Moxidectin on my animals with no side effects whatsoever.
They were, however, by US terms, I think morbidly obese
So were not exactly lacking in body fat to store the chemical.
I used it for over a year, on animals that were in show conditional and broodmares, and on weaned foals (it was this that actually got me researching it as it states it is not safe for foals under 4 months, yet Minis weigh less than an Arab 4 month old foal)
Even so, in all fairness I have to say I did not have any problems.
It was not that much easier to do, however, the syringe was a nightmare and it is expensive.
All told, I no longer buy it and am happy to use Ivermectin every two months, no rotating whatsoever, merely adding Praziquantel for Tapes and Fenbendazole for encysteds, twice a year.
There is
STILL no resistance to Ivermectin, in horses.
