By Nikki Alvin-Smith Give yourself a pat on the back if you’ve already taken the positive step of collecting a manure sample from your horse and sending it in for a FECT (fecal egg count test). Your report will give you an indication of whether your horse has a negative egg worm count, or… Read more »
Category: Our Blog
How To Avoid Tapeworm Troubles In Your Horse
By Nikki Alvin-Smith Unfortunately, there is currently no simple tapeworm test for horses available in the U.S.A., and when tapeworms are present in your horse they can cause damage to your horse’s health. A test previously available, Equisal from a U.K. based company, was deemed too risky to use in the U.S.A. due to… Read more »
Horsemen’s Laboratory Clients That Make a Difference ~
By Nikki Alvin-Smith Case Study: EAGALA Team Rene Stone and Her 29 Year Old Horse Tristan Help PTSD Sufferers When Rene Stone was 30 she bought her first horse, the now 29 year-old Thoroughbred Tristan. While his body was broken, his spirit was bright and Rene Stone took a chance on him because… Read more »
Yikes! My Horse Has No Tail! Are Pinworms The Culprit?
By Nikki Alvin-Smith This Summer I was aghast to discover one of my broodmares had rubbed her tail into a matted mess of hairs. She had been in her stall just a few hours, enjoying a respite from the heat of the sun. When I had brought her in from the pasture her tail… Read more »
Why Horse Worm Control Maximizes My Horses’ Health
Nikki Alvin-Smith As an advanced equestrian competitor with a keen eye on the blue ribbon (or red, white and blue) and my quest to ensure all my horses and those of my students reach their full potential, I love to take control of as many aspects of their health care as possible. The constant… Read more »
Why Rotational Horse Deworming is Irrational
By Nikki Alvin-Smith Administering paste dewormers such as Ivermectin every 6-8 weeks, seemed like a good idea at the time, but that was nearly 40 years ago. Paste dewormers provided a quick and easy solution to control internal horse parasites and off we all went down that road. Along the way the scientific community began… Read more »
Stay On Track With Your Horse Worm Control Program
By Nikki Alvin-Smith Like many busy horse owners I do my best to stay on track with my horse herd’s needs when it comes to an effective worm control program. While best intentions are certainly not enough when it comes to taking care of the health of your horse(s), I do confess to sometimes overlooking… Read more »
Targeted Worm Control Versus Routine Scheduled Deworming
At Horsemen’s Laboratory we often receive requests from clients for a routine deworming schedule. The new worm control program (targeted worm control) for horses involves performing fecal egg counts to determine when horses, as well as which horses, need to be dewormed. Worm control involves much more than just giving a different dewormer every 6… Read more »
Horses and Worms-Strongyle Egg Shedding Rate(Part 2)
By Dr. John W. Byrd After studying the samples that tested positive and negative in 2015, 2016 and 2017, Horsemen’s Laboratory’s staff decided to analyze the shedding rate of strongyle eggs during the same years. The following charts and graphs are the results of that study. There appears to be very little difference in… Read more »
Horses and Worms – Strongyle Egg Shedding Rate (Part 1)
By John Byrd, DVM The articles that I write are most often answers to questions Horsemen’s Laboratory has received over the 25 years we have been helping horse owners evaluate their horse’s worm control program. This is the first part of a two-part series discussing several of these questions. We have reviewed the results… Read more »
