September - H-Lab main article

This month:
Worms: Get Rid Of Them, Or Co-Exist?

Parasites have been around for millions of years, but parasitic diseases became common in perhaps the last 200, according to Craig R. Reinemeyer, DVM, PhD, president of East Tennessee Clinical Research Inc. At issue is domestication, throwing up fences and putting livestock inside, and especially if there are more animals than the land can support. However, Reinemeyer has what some might call a radical idea; what if we learned to simply live with the parasites?

If that's a novel concept for you, consider the source: Dr. Reinemeyer is one of the top equine parasite experts today, and is a regular speaker on parasite resistance topics, often interviewed by the equine media on a variety of parasite topics. In terms of knowledge about the parasites that infect our horses and what we should be doing about them, he's one of the 'go-to' guys.

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Is it even possible
to co-exist with your horse's worms?
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Earlier this year, TheHorse.com posted an article titled Equine Parasites: 6 Tips On Learning to Live With Worms (article #15854), recapping Dr. Reinemeyer's presentation at the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) convention. We recommend reading this well-written and thorough article to understand the current guidance on equine parasites and deworming in order to maximize equine health and avoid losing the efficacy of deworming medications in your herd, whether that herd be one horse, or 100.

Here are a few key points from the article:

People often focus on the wrong end of the parasite life cycle. This means they emphasize 'deworming' or killing adult worms after all the damage has been done instead of having a preventive approach through a proactive 'parasite control' program. While it takes a little more effort to develop an overall program that takes into account the horse's environment, climate and season, farm management practices, and each horse's unique susceptibilities, by doing so the end result is less dewormer passing through your horses, and less chance of resistance in your horse's parasite population.

Deworming by calendar (or convenience) doesn't take into account the lifecycle and seasonality of parasite transmission - understanding the biology of each type of parasite will help you better control their populations.

Treat each horse according to how much he 'sheds' parasite eggs in his feces, contaminating the environment - and find out who the high, moderate, and low shedders are, and what types of parasites you need to deworm for, by conducting fecal egg count reduction tests (FECRT) to develop a program based on selective treatment.

Conducting FECRTs in your herd will determine which anthelmintics are still effective, and which should never be purchased again.

There's more information in the full text, and when you visit TheHorse.com to read it, you might also want to check out their webinar series with Dr. Reinemeyer, titled Deworming Your Horse and Deworming Your Horse: Take 2; you can access them under the Videos tab at TheHorse.com.