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The
Natural Horse Group was established in 2001.
It aims to provide
information that enables people to explore ways of keeping and managing
equines that enhance wellbeing and encourage a natural lifestyle
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Articles
Can I Worm my Way Out of This?
By Rachel Bedingfield
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For the last four or five years, I've used worm egg counts to guide my worming programme for my horses. On this basis, I've probably had to worm them on average once a year, and I regularly receive reports showing "no eggs seen". You can imagine my horror, then, when July's routine testing showed up worm eggs in their thousands! What had gone wrong?
The routine I follow is to test the horses in spring before they are turned out onto a "clean" field after winter. A "clean" field is one that has not been grazed for at least three months, and preferably longer. I worm anyone who needs it and leave the rest. They get tested again in July and, again, get wormed only if they need it. I might check again later in the season and then they need their autumn tapeworm dose as the faecal egg counts cannot check for tapeworm. (You can get a blood test done by your vet, but I tend to think this is too expensive and simply opt to worm).
Last year, the NHG had a talk from Dr Chris Proudman from Liverpool University on worm control. He is actively promoting using faecal egg counts and clean grazing systems to control worms. His concern is that worms are becoming resistant to the wormers and thus, if we don't take care now, we could be left with few chemicals which we can use to control them. The biggest problem comes when people routinely worm but don't effectively kill all the worms present. Those which survive will develop resistance and pass it on to the next generation. The easiest way to build resistance is to under-dose, a practice that happens all the time as owners try to save money and prevent waste. How many of us, hand on heart, can say that we always use the full dose of wormer, and are not tempted to make a tube go further, by slightly under-dosing?
One of the things which struck me form Chris' talk was the difference in natural resistance to worms between horses. He said, in any group of horses, 20% will carry 80% of the worm burden, the rest being relatively clear. Find these carriers, and actively test and worm them, and you will go a long way to reducing the overall worm burden in your herd. We found out that our main carrier is Poppy, our old riding school retiree. So Poppy always gets tested and, I'm finding as she ages (she's' about 30 now we think) that her egg counts are getting higher. The report on the counts comes in three levels: under 200, is a low count and the horse doesn't need worming. 200 to 1200 is a medium count and the horse needs worming. Over 1200 is high and the horse needs worming plus you need to check your worming programme.
Poppy's count in late March was 1150 and we duly wormed her with Equitape. The others had low counts and so were not wormed. We re-tested in July and I was aghast to find Poppy's count was 5700. I had never seen such a high result and I thought Poppy must be at death's door! When I calmed down, I phoned Gillian Booth at Westgate Labs, who I use for the egg counts. She wasn't surprised to get my call! She confirmed what I had suspected: Poppy had probably had a hatching of encysted larvae. These inhabit the gut wall and , for reasons not yet known to man, can stay for years until suddenly emerging. No-one knows the trigger but I discovered that I had missed a vital part of the targeted worming system, which would prevent a huge worm count like this.
Gillian explained that, for the first two to three years that you move to this programme, you need to routinely clear out encysted larvae. I believe there are a couple of wormers that will do this. I have chosen to give them all a routine dose of Equest in November for the next two years. I will continue testing and with the clean grazing programme, hopefully, within three years will be back to only needing the annual tapeworm treatment and occasionally worming the more susceptible individuals. I think this is called living and learning!
For more information on worm control, visit Chris Proudman's website:
www.daignosteq.co.uk The people at Westgate Labs are always helpful. See their advert for contact details. |
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