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Useful Advice On Horse Wormers

By Cynthia Snyder


As a farmer, you need to take care of the health of the animal by ensuring that internal parasites do not negatively affect their health. The major concern is that there are multiple drugs available in the market while the horses are becoming resistant to a few of them. This poses both as a challenge and confusion to a farmer. Luckily, this article will provide you with details on horse wormers you can use.

You should first start by establishing what level of worms are available in the horses. This can be done by a number of various tests. One of the main tests is the fecal egg count. It is capable of determining the number of adult worms that can produce eggs. It is basically done from three to four months. The test is able to identify those that have a higher burden which should be subjected to treatment. It can also be used in identifying horses which have grown resistance to treatment done.

Blood and saliva samples can be taken to test the level of worms. A blood sample identifies horses that have a tapeworm infection. A high positive result indicates that the animal requires to be dewormed. A low positive result indicates that there is a low level of infection and treatment may not be needed. For the saliva samples, a simple swab is taken and analyzed. This test is cheaper and can easily fit in a worming plan.

Horses should be treated only when necessary. These animals have been able to grow with the internal parasites hence a small population does not have an effect on their well-being. Exposing such a population only encourages resistance which with time will be a huge issue. It is imperative you make use of the correct deworming plan to avoid these problems.

The correct dose should be given at all times. Under-dosing leads to resistance whereas overdosing is not beneficial. The weight of the horses will help you determine the amounts that should be given. A weighing tape is normally used in determining the weight. When giving the correct dosage, tablets are preferred as compared to the liquid dewormers since the animals tend to spit out some of it which can result in under-dosing.

When rotating the drugs every season, make an effort of changing the active element instead of switching brand names. This will help more so if the animals have developed resistance. To add on this, remember to talk to your vet who will inform you if there is resistance to the active element you want to use in your location. This allows you to make the right choice.

It is vital to reduce using dewormers by worming once in a while. You can achieve this by utilizing the dewormers with a long dosing interval. This is possible also by doing worm egg count in the feces so as to treat only the required horses with a certain level of eggs in the feces, which is more than two hundred of them in a gram.

It may be wise for you to remove droppings from pastures and shelter from time to time. This helps in getting rid of many worms that escaped treatment. The worms can become resistant after some time to the active element being used. Removing them prevents them from reinfecting animals.




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