Preliminary Data from Six Years of Selective Anthelmintic Treatment

If you are not running fecals regularly then basing your deworming decisions based on the results you don’t know if what you are doing is effective and/or leading to resistant parasites. We are increasingly recommending this program and find horse owners spend less and use less dewormer. For more see the article associated with this topic (link above).
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Preliminary Data from Six Years of Selective Anthelmintic Treatment on Five Horse Farms in France and Switzerland

Animals (Basel). 2020 Dec 15;10(12):E2395.
Authors
Liselore Roelfstra 1 , Marion Quartier 1 , Kurt Pfister 1 2
Affiliations

1 Laboratoire Animal Diagnostic, Beauregard 28, CH-2036 Corcelles-Cormondreche, Switzerland.
2 Parasite Consulting GmbH, Wendschatzstrasse 8, CH-3006 Berne, Switzerland.

PMID: 33333748
DOI: 10.3390/ani10122395

Abstract

Anthelmintic resistance (AR) of small strongyle populations (cyathostomins) against products of the benzimidazole and tetrahydropyrimidine classes occurs now worldwide and there is an increasing number of reports also regarding macrocyclic lactones. Consequently, and in order to maintain an appropriate horse parasite control, alternative control schemes must be evaluated under field conditions. Here we present a six-year field study on the administration of the so-called selective or targeted selective anthelmintic treatment (SAT) concept. In this study on five horse farms in France and Switzerland, 757 fecal samples from 93 equids (90 horses, 3 ponies) have been taken twice a year (between early and late spring and between early and late autumn) from autumn 2014 to spring 2020 and processed by a McMaster technique. From a total of 757 samples, only 263 (34.7%) had a fecal egg count ≥200 EpG and needed an anthelmintic treatment. This small number of fecal samples ≥200 EpG demonstrates the considerable potential for a long-term reduction of the number of anthelmintic treatments and the anthelmintic pressure by using the SAT-programme.