Parasite Control for Leisure Horses
Whether you board your horse or have them on your own pasture; horses can get worms. These parasites can live as eggs or larvae in the grazing pasture, in feed, in a mare's milk, on horses' coats, via flying insects and throughout your horses' living environment. Worms therefore spread amongst horses by contamination via feces, feeding, flying insect bites, egg laying and direct contact.
High horse traffic barns are at special risk for cross contamination with the equine parasite population. Are you doing your best to take control of illness and colic causing parasites? Horse buyers and horse boarders love to know their horses' health is properly taken care of so why not learn how to get in front of your competition for patrons with an intelligent cost effective approach ?
With a barn full of horses with different parasite burdens, fecal egg count testing will help you deworm each one properly
Change can be hard, especially for horse owners. We follow the seemingly indisputable rules of horse care and management that have been handed down to us from generations past. And we can be taken aback when someone dares question our decades-old practices.
One tradition that must be bucked, is deworming horses at regular intervals. Blanket parasite control strategies have led to widespread drug resistance in many parasite populations. And if farm and boarding barn owners don't transition to a more targeted approach, then the resistance of all parasite populations to all drugs on the market could very soon become a reality.
Why do fecal egg counts on your horses before deworming?
Because there is a devastating crisis developing. Parasite Resistance!
Parasite resistance has been developing for some time due what I call selective breeding of the parasites. What this means is that each time we deworm a horse or a group of horses with a certain medication we are killing off the sensitive parasites and allow those few that are resistant to continue to multiply. Therefore, each time we use that medication the resistant parasites compose a larger percentage of the population until eventually they become the majority of the population and that particular deworming medication is no longer effective at controlling that parasite.
Since, there are no new deworming medications being developed it is likely that before long we will be very limited in what deworming medications are available that are effective.
There are only 3 classes of drugs available in the USA and there is already evidence that there is great deal of resistance to 2 classes in small strongyles. There is also some evidence of resistance in roundworms, and pinworms to the third class of drugs. Therefore we must make every effort to slow or stop further development of resistance.
Fecal egg counts are the most important tool to slow the development of resistance in horse parasites. Doing fecal egg counts and using the knowledge that the result give owners can determine when and which horses need to be dewormed this will greatly reduce the selective breeding of parasites for resistance
By using Horsemen's Laboratory's Equine Fecal Egg Count Testing Kit you will be able to determine the types of parasites (if any) have infected your horses. We will also provide a suggested treatment for those specific parasites, enabling you to enhance the health and performance of your horses.
