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  Discussion on Any negative effects with paste worming once a month?
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Posted on Wednesday, Mar 22, 2000 - 1:05 pm:

Dr. O, or anyone, do you know of any negative effects of worming with Ivermectrin more often than every six weeks to two months? I was told by a respected trainer that he believes that worming once a month will prevent colics that are worm caused. Thank you. Eve

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 22, 2000 - 2:07 pm:

Our vet told me that you could worm a horse every day and it would not do any damage, except to your pocket. When we got our mare her DrOppings were literally wriggling. You could see several types of worm with the naked eye and loads of small redoworms, after we had wormed her there were still worms in her DrOppings and the vet suggested we wormed her with a different wormer every day for a week, including a double dose for tapes, and then followed this a week later with a 5 day course of Equine Guard!! She seemed to do fine on it - despite the fact that unknown to us she was only 6 weeks off foaling.

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 22, 2000 - 2:09 pm:

Our vet told me that you could worm a horse every day and it would not do any damage, except to your pocket. When we got our mare her DrOppings were literally wriggling. You could see several types of worm with the naked eye and loads of small redoworms, after we had wormed her there were still worms in her DrOppings and the vet suggested we wormed her with a different wormer every day for a week, including a double dose for tapes, and then followed this a week later with a 5 day course of Equine Guard!! She seemed to do fine on it - despite the fact that unknown to us she was only 6 weeks off foaling.

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 22, 2000 - 5:49 pm:

Hello Eva,
Claire is right.......to a point. Ivermectin is so nontoxic even at once every 4 weeks it is still very safe. Reread the article on parasites and disease and you will see one of the real culprits is the newly ingested larvae from the pasture. So a deworming program needs to take into account the number of larvae the horse is exposed to. The 6 to 8 week recommendation is based on the prepatency period. By deworming at these intervals you minimize contamination of the pasture and over time the pastures become cleaner. Now if you are in a situation where the larvae burden on a pasture is heavy more frequent deworming may help the horses health and reduce the incidence of colic.
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Mar 22, 2000 - 11:14 pm:

Thank you.

Posted on Thursday, Mar 23, 2000 - 7:22 am:

Dr O,
Wouldn't you suggest to rotate the paste wormers?
I believe the worms can get immune, if the same type of wormer is used all the time.

Posted on Thursday, Mar 23, 2000 - 6:18 pm:

Hello Denise,
This subject is discussed in detail in the article on deworming horses.
DrO

Posted on Monday, Mar 27, 2000 - 8:22 am:

Dr O,
I couldn't find that information anywhere. I had looked for it before as well.
I feel this is important to address, if you don't mind. This comment/question flows right along with Eva's question. :-)

When we first got horses, the vet and another horse owners said that Ivermectin or Equimectrin are the only wormers you need to use because it kills everything. I did this for one full year.
But my horses were still pot-bellied and the young ones just weren't growing much. I had a new vet come in and she strongly suggested rotating, and said that my horses were indeed very "wormy" and my previous program was not working. (I used Ivermectin every 8 weeks). I began rotating as she suggested between PANACUR (Loved this stuff! Their bellies went down within two weeks!)
STRONGID and in the fall IVERMECTRIN.
I have noticed such a striking difference in my young horses! It is amazing!
It just scares me when I hear of people using only one type of dewormer. I just think people should have as much information about this as possible.
And felt I should elaborate on this topic just a bit for those who are new to horses.

Posted on Tuesday, Mar 28, 2000 - 1:53 am:

These subjects are covered in detail at: Care for Horses: General Care: Deworming and Parasite Control. Read the two articles they will answer your questions.
DrO
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