worming?-What to use and when

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zoey829

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I just wanted to get ideas of what type of worming to use and what time of yr. ANd it deems reapting. DO NOT USE QUEST on minis.

Thanks for the inputs..
 
We use safeguard for our foals, they get wormed monthly.

We use zimentrin for the adults. I worm the adults every 8 to 10 weeks. We worm often because we have

small dry lots & our pasture is small too. If you have a lot of pasture in the winter you may not need to worm as often as us. JMO cjmm
 
If a horse, big or small, is not on a daily wormer (which would still need to be paste wormed at least every 6 months)it is imperative to have your horses on a worming routine not to exceed every 8 weeks. The damage caused by wormers "munching" away on your horse's internal organs is cumulative. For instance, worms in the intestines, bite/eat the horse's intestine linings, scar tissue forms which never really totally heals to normal which interfers with absorbtion of nutrients. As generations of new worms continue this, the horse loses more and more of the ability to get proper nutrition. One effect will be colic and reoccurring colic, horses that are hard keepers, oldsters that become very hard to keep up.

So a worming routine every 8 weeks without fail with 1.87 ivermectrin is good but a double dose of panacur to get rid of tapeworms should be done in the spring (or zimectrin gold) Fecal counts do not always tell you the whole picture because of the life cycle of the worm involved - it only shows the worm at the end of the life cycle in the manure- your horse could be packed with an assortment of worms that never show at the time of the fecal inspection. I myself personally rotate between ivermectrin and pyrantel poamate (panacur). Even this does not jkill encysted redworms - safeguard double does for 5 days will
 
If you deworm your big horses with Ivermectin and your foals with Safeguard, you are not targeting the same parasites in both classes of horses, so they can be causing infestations in each other. You really should deworm ALL horses with the same chemical each time you deworm.

I do rotate, but I don't go crazy covering every chemical class of dewormers. I deworm my mares with Ivermectin right after they've foaled, and also deworm ALL other horses in the same dry lot or pasture as the mares and their foals will be in at the same time. To NOT deworm the other horses at the same time means the mares' deworming was useless.

8 weeks later, which is the foals' first deworming, ALL the horses get dewormed with Safeguard, double dose, five days in a row, which is really one of the only ways to get rid of the cyathastomes.

Safeguard, (Fenbendazole), in many clinical trials, has been shown to be one of the chemicals which parasites can develop a quick resistance to, so I will only use it once per years. When the foals are three months old they get Ivermectin and will get that every four weeks, except I do get a Zimectrin Gold in there in late summer, for the tapes.

Deworming can be a highly emotional topic, LOL. Some people are terrified of using Quest but I have used it on my adult miniatures many times. The only key to using Quest successfully is to know the weight of your horse and to not over-dose. Quest has a low margin of over-dose safety. My horses are all weighed on a large animal scale, so I know how much they can safely have.
 
Everyone just got Ivermectin. What should use next for my mini's? Because in the fall is when I should do the double dose of safegaurd?
 
In the fall after a hard killing freeze, usually later November here in Iowa temperatures....I personally use Zimectrin Gold in my horses ....just my personal preference but it also goes after bots and that's what you want to be sure your getting rid of before winter.
 
This is what I came up with for nj

Strondgid double dose in the fall and spring.

Ivermectin after they foal

Then rotate between ivermectin and safe guard.

How does that sound?
 
We use ivermectin here. To me, feeding a horse a daily dose of something is going to build resistance and I dont agree with giving chemicals (especially to kill 'bugs') on a daily basis.

One of the neighbors has been using ivermectin for years, with no rotation. When one of their mares had surgery due to an entrolith, while the vet was 'in there' they asked that he look for any worm damage or anything he noticed.... he said all looked good.

We have dry lots here, but the manure is hauled away and the horses eat from feeders. We worm every 60 days for the foals, and 90 for the adults.

You will probably get a variety of opinions here on worming... all different, and this is just mine. We have had several vets here advise it is not necessary to rotate when using ivermectin. It kills more parasites of more varieties than anything else on the market. JMO.
 
Here is a great program that my horses are on and an explanation (taken from another forum):

"This is my BI-monthly worming plan based on a rotation of anthelmintic that is best used during each season. Each horse WILL be required to participate in this strategic plan.

January

February - Double Dose Fenbendazole for 5 consecutive days

March

April - Double Dose Pyrantel Pamoate

May

June - Ivermectin single dose

July

August - Ivermectin single dose

September

October - Double Dose Fenbendazole for 5 consecutive days

November

December - Ivermectin single dose

Explination:

Ivermectin should be used through out the entire grazing season.

Pyrantel Pamoate's should be used early spring and late fall

Ivermectin should be used late winter when contracting 'grazing season' worms is limited if at all, this eliminates any residual summer worms and is most effective as they are not likely to be ingested again until spring.

Worming for encysted Redworms also known as Strongyles is THE most important worm to eliminate. This is accomplished with a five-day course of Fenbendazole administered at a double dose. The reason you have to administer so much wormer for this specific worm is because it has a very slow metabolism, and a single dose simply doesn't phase it. The wormer only stays in the horses system for about 16 hours and the worm's lives on. But even if you were to give just a double dose in one go, these worms have the ability to ''insist'' themselves into our horses which makes the pretty much invincible. Doing this 5 days in a row, is the only known way to rid the body of up to 90+% of strongyles. It WILL NOT hurt your horse, Safeguard is an amazing product and the name directly effects its potency, its SAFE! Why are Strongyles so bad? Because they most common and most destructive of all-internal parasites in the equine!

Quest is by far the most controversial equine wormer available to us horse persons!

Quest is absorbed into the fat cells of your horse. Making it a fat-soluble wormer (this is why you do NOT worm foals with this product). Therefore it is stored in your horse’s fat cells and released slowly into your horses system. Thus extending the length of time between wormers. Generally you do NOT worm for at least 3 months after using the product.

Now because it is a fat-soluble wormer (gel), it is also absorbed into brain tissue. This can cause your horse to become uncoordinated among other signs of nervous system toxicity. This may also effect the horse with out you physically able to see it. An overdose would produce noticeable side effects, seizures/comma/death being only the most serious of many.

Other problems with this wormer are the fact that it is possibly ‘to good a wormer’, meaning it is so effective in a single dose that horses that are debilitated or carrying heavy worm burdens could quite easily become impacted/colic due to the large die off of worms in their bodies.

The worst equine worm horse owners need to worry about is encysted strongyles. The hype is that Quest does a good job at killing encysted strongyles (among many others). Although yes it does a decent job because it sticks around in the body for a substantial amount of time – it is not as effective as a double dose of fenbendazole for 5 consecutive days in a row. Either way there are other options to remove encysted strongyles without using Quest.

So, we do have a very effective and safe alternative to quest in regards to eliminating Redworms or Strongyles, which ever you prefer to call them. Ivermectin is more effective then quest in eliminating bots, and our Pyrantel pamoate’s do a great job eliminating tapes. Quest does not need to be incorporated in a routine worming plan at all, but it as all personal choice and preference.

I personally will never incorporate the product into my worming plan as I cannot for the life of me understand why if you have other safer options, you would take the risk. Quest can be potentially hazardous at a mere 5x the recommend dose. That is VERY low, especially when you compare it to all the other wormers we have on the market. Ivermectin can be administered at 60x the dose and still not cause serious problems, fenbendazole at 100-200 times the dose and studies have shown that even then there wasn’t any signs of problems. My point is I am not about to use a product that is potentially lethal at such an incredibly low overdose. It simply has more toxicity in our horse’s bodies"
 
I go by the 3 way rotation recommended in the Smart Pak catalog (it can be found at SmartPakEquine.com). I change up what brand of each type of wormer too. I use Ivermectin on the foals. I am in eastern PA which would be the same climate as you in NJ.
 
Adult horses, I deworm every 6-8 weeks with Ivermectin. Young horses up to about 18mos old, I deworm every month with Ivermectin. In the fall, after the frost, everyone is dewormed with Zimectrin Gold (in case of tapes).

No parasite resistance has been reported concerning ivermectin as an every time horse dewormer, and ivermectin is the only appropriate choice of dewormer if you do not rotate. I do not and have not ever rotated dewormers other than to use a "gold" product for tapes after the first frost.

Obviously, we all do what we think is best for our horses, and my opinion is that Ivermectin is the best and broadest spectrum dewormer that you can use. It's not a factor to me because I don't have enough minis to make it expensive to deworm regardless of product choice, but Ivermectin is also a very inexpensive dewormer. I purchase it for about $3/tube from Jeffers Equine and one tube easily does 3 minis. My perferred brand of it is "Bimectin" which is unique from other ivermectin dewormers in that it is a clear gel (vs. a paste) and it is apple flavored. Many of my horses honestly BEG for more of it after they are dosed. It smells very good, too (a sweet apple smell).

Bimectin -- Apple Flavored Ivermectin Gel at Jeffers Equine

Here's an informative link about deworming and the available options: http://www.horsekeeping.com/horse_health_c...e_dewormers.htm
 
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I will agree that most rotation programs are really ridiculous, because Ivermectin gets the same worms other dewormers get, PLUS bots, and all you need is Ivermectin Gold once or twice a year to get those tapes.

But why use Pyrantel pamoate for tapes, when you can use one of the Ivermectins on the market which also has the pyrantel or praziquantel in it to kill tapes? Then you are still killing all the other parasites that you would NOT kill by using pyrantel alone.

And to suggest that Fenbendazole (Safeguard) can be used as a substitute for Quest isn't true, as Safeguard does not kill nearly the same broad spectrum of parasites as Quest does. The encysted small cyathasatomes, or the small strongyles, WILL NOT show up on a fecal egg count until they emerge from the intestinal wall, and they don't all emerge at the same time, so you can never be sure how heavy the load is that you horse is carrying. Quest will kill them in a single dose, and Fenbendazole will kill them in a double dose, used five days in a row. However, parasites HAVE demonstrated a resistance build-up to Fenbendazole, but in years of research they have NOT shown any resistance to Ivermectin OR Quest.

The thing I *will* say in favor of Fenbendazole over Quest is that if a horse DOES have a heavy small strongyle infestation, it is safer to kill them off slowly, over a five day period, than killing them off all at once, as Quest would, as the sudden *bloom* could cause colic.

I don't use Quest simply because I have foals and young horses I need to deworm, and all horses should have the same dewormer at the same time, so therefore I use Safeguard. But I will only use it once per year, as I'm afraid of resistance buildup.

I also believe that minatures should NOT be dewormed unless there has been a fecal egg count done on a few of them first. Of course it depends completely upon the conditions in which your horses are raised. If they are on a huge pasture, infestation might be less.

If you are experiencing a really hot, dry summer, those conditions favor the killing off of a LOT of parasites which are passed through the manure. In fact, it's actually MORE important to keep up with deworming in the winter than it is in the summer, as the parasites can withstand incredibly low temperatures, but hot sun will dry them out and kill them.
 
The thing I like best about Fenbendazole over Moxidectin is that Fenbendazole will not kill your horses, whereas it is proven that Moxidectin can and will and has!!!

Please do NOT ever, use Moxidectin on Minis.

It is even in the leaflet enclosed - in the States- not to do so, or at least to do so with caution!!

OK, Worming.

Ivermectin every 8 weeks.

ANY brand of Ivermectin- they are all the same.

Fenbendazole 5 day (double dose in the States) in Spring and Autumn (wait ten days and give Ivermectin + Praziquantel at the same time of year)

That's it Folks, simple as that.

That gets the lot.

Fenbendazole gets more encysteds than Moxidectin, in spite of the advertising which they have had to withdraw and reword over here as it does not meet trading standards!!!

Fenbendazole does NOT kill Tapeworms in any way shape or form.

There is no point in rotating- how long have I been saying that for??

There is a very small resistance level to Ivermectin in some horses at some stages of their lives but the research is ten years out of date and needs redoing.

Daily worming has proven to cause resistance- for those of you using this form of wormer I will try to locate the research if you wish it.
 
rabbitsfizz-

That is what I do except for the- (waiting ten days and give Ivermectin + Praziquantel at the same time of year). What type of wormer is Praziquantel? Thanks
 

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