This is an archived Horseadvice.com Discussion. The parent article and menus are available on the navigation menu below:
HorseAdvice.com » Horse Care » Worms, Deworming, Parasite Control » Overview of Deworming »
  Discussion on Foal Worming Fatality
Author Message

Posted on Monday, Jan 8, 2001 - 6:50 pm:

I have inadvertently killed a beautiful 7 month old foal by following what I believed to be "standard" worming practices. This filly came to me at age 4 months in September. She had been wormed before she came. I wormed her with Safeguard (Benzemidazole) in late October. Because of the holidays, I was late in administering wormer in December, and just did so now in January. I used Ivermectin. I routinely worm every other month following a rotation of ivermectin/pyrantel pamoate
/ivermectin/benzemidazole.

I did this last worming yesterday morning before feeding time. By 4:00 in the afternoon, the filly was in pain. The vet came out and gave her banamine and tubed her with mineral oil. She seemed to improve, and so I left her at 6:30 p.m. At 8:30 p.m. I came back down to check on her, and she was down again. When I called my vet, he recommended that I bring her to the University hospital for testing and monitoring. I did. They did an ultrasound on her intestines which appeared to be healthy and active. They gave her an I.V. with fluids. They did a belly tap. They flushed her stomach and were happy with the results. She was having a very loose bowel movement, and they decided not to do a rectal exam because of her age. We stayed with her until 1:00 a.m. They could find nothing seriously wrong with her, other than a belly tap that showed fecal matter. They thought they had "caught" the bowel in the tap, and didn't feel it was an issue. When I left at 1:00 a.m., they told me she was not a surgical candidate.

At 3:30 a.m. I received a call that they wanted to do surgery, she was worse. At 4:00 a.m. they opened her up. She had ruptured her bowel and there was nothing they could do. We had her euthanized. Autopsy revealed that there was a heavy load of round worms and they concluded that the worming was too much for her system. They recommended that I worm a half dose two days in a row every 4 weeks. That's good information, but it doesn't bring back my filly. Why isn't this information more readily available? I thought I was doing the very best thing for my filly, and now I find I'm at least partially to blame for her death. I want to make sure that the advice I've been given, and the results of the autopsy make sense. I can't possibly make it through the loss of another foal because of my own negligence.

Susan

Posted on Monday, Jan 8, 2001 - 8:06 pm:

Oh Susan, my heart is breaking for you. Thank you for being strong enough to bring your experience to us. You are helping others.

Posted on Tuesday, Jan 9, 2001 - 12:13 am:

I lost my best friend, a mare I had for 20 years, last year. I still can't stop thinking of the "what if's". I will pray for you.
I don't understand the advice you received. How often should a foal be wormed. And why was the wormer too much for her system?
My deceased mare's daughter is now pregnant (due March 1) so I am reading everything I can to prepare for the baby's arrival.

Posted on Tuesday, Jan 9, 2001 - 11:12 am:

Oh Susan, that is just not fair - my heart goes out to you. I too do not understand why the regular dose was "too much for her system" and will anxiously await Dr O's commentary. I am so sorry.

Posted on Tuesday, Jan 9, 2001 - 1:57 pm:

My most heart felt condolences Susan. But you must understand it looks like to me at this time that you did nothing wrong and something in this story may be amiss or perhaps you were just unlucky. I find it very unlikely that a foal who had been regularly dewormed prior to being dewormed, even if you where a month late, built up such a burden that it resulted in rupture from a heavy round worm burden. The Safe Quard is not effective at removing the migrating larval forms but would have cleared the bowel of the preadult larvae and adults in October.

Is there any reason to believe this foal had not been dewormed effectively before you received the foal or is there some reason to believe you have an unusually high burden of rounds worms on your farm? Signs of heavy round burdens are weight loss a poor coat, a pendulous abdomen, a chronic cough or perhaps a mild diarrhea. Rounds are completely a disease of the growing foal and yearling. The adult immune system kills off the larvae. They release the eggs and they are very resistant to environmental degradation and therefore can persist for years. Growing horses infect other growing horses and even last year's young horses can infect this year's growing horses.

I too would make their recommendation of starting slow on the deworming of a foal that had not received good care so may have a large buildup of adult rounds. This type bowel rupture has been reported in the literature in severe cases. But I think their recommendations are very wrong in the case of well cared foals: the frequency of every 6 weeks is good but dewormers are not as effective in foals as they are adult horses so greatly reducing the dose may lower their efficiency to the point of allowing a buildup of infective larvae, therby worsening the problem. Unless there was some reason to believe there was a heavy parasite burden, I would have done something very similar to what you did. I do recommend a different rotation of more effective dewormers than the benzimadazoles however and our program is described in the article on deworming.
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, Jan 9, 2001 - 7:43 pm:

Thank you, everyone, for your very kind words. There are no words that can describe the agony I'm feeling. Cinderella was the name of the filly. A half Friesian/half Appaloosa, wildly leopard spotted filly destined for eventing or dressage. We expected great things from her. But mostly, she was wonderful because of her sweet disposition and mild manners. I loved her best and part of me has died with her.

I am still gathering information, and feel better that I wasn't too far off base in my worming program. My vet also disagrees with what the U told me, and I'm trying to follow up with him as well. I will write more soon.

Susan

Posted on Wednesday, Jan 10, 2001 - 10:24 am:

Dear Susan
I am so sorry for your loss. I lost a foal in April 2000 and I know it is just heartbreaking. It seems the first thing you want to do is blame yourself and then there are all the what if's....
We all do our best and love our horses dearly.

Here is a poem from another posting on the HA:

Don’t cry for the horses that life has set free,
a million white horses forever to be.
Don’t cry for the horses now in God’s hand,
as they dance and they prance in a heavenly band.

They were ours as a gift, but never to keep.
As they close their eyes forever to sleep,
their spirits unbound, on silver wings they fly,
a million white horses against the blue sky.

Look up into heaven, you’ll see them above,
the horses we lost, the horses we loved.
Manes and tails flowing, they gallop through time.
They were never yours -they were never mine.

Don’t cry for the horses, they’ll be back someday,
when our time is gone, they’ll show us the way.
Do you hear that soft nicker? Close to your ear?
Don’t cry for the horses, love the ones that are here.

~Barbara

Posted on Wednesday, Jan 10, 2001 - 9:43 pm:

Oh Barbara, that's beautiful. Thank you so much!

Susan

Posted on Wednesday, Jan 10, 2001 - 10:14 pm:

Dear Susan

Every horse care decision I face is underlined with " is this the right thing to do?". Its not fair that you treated your filly "by the book" and she died. I was going to worm a new colt TOMORROW that I suspect has a worm problem. I was going to 5 day double dose with panacur but my vet's office said just use ivomectrin. You may have saved his life. Thank you for sharing with me. Of course, now I have to do more research and find " the right thing to do"....

Posted on Thursday, Jan 11, 2001 - 9:14 pm:

Susan
One more poem....

And the verse falls to the soul
like dew to the pasture
What does it matter that my love
could not keep her.
The night is starry and she
is not with me.
This is all. In the distance
someone is singing. In the
distance. My soul is not
satisfied that it has lost
her. My sight tries to
find her as though to bring
her closer. My heart
looks for her and she
is not with me.

~pablo neruda

B

Posted on Sunday, Jan 14, 2001 - 6:19 pm:

I wish I had some words to say to make you feel better. I don't have a clue. So I've looked up a quote by Kahlil Gibran. I picked the one on joy & sorrow because our horses do bring us so much.

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
How else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart & you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Posted on Wednesday, Jun 6, 2001 - 11:07 pm:

I recently purchased from a sale barn a horribly mal-nourished pony mare and her foal. My vet hasn't been out to see them yet but suggested that I worm them both immediatly with anthelcide or panacur. The mare is skin and bones with ribs, hip bones, shoulder bones and spine protruding and a pot belly (probably worms) I have no idea how old the foal is and I seriously doubt that either have been wormed for quite some time, nor fed. I have them on grass right now and a tiny amount of sweet mix 11% with a mare/foal supplement. I've never had a neglected horse before so I'm open for suggestions...help!
Lynelle
Home Page | Top of Page | Join Us!
Horseadvice.com is a BBB Accredited Business. Click for the BBB Business Review of this Horse Training in Stokesdale NC