Study: Dewormer Use Drastically Reduced On Farms Using Fecal Egg Counts

Scientists have been touting the need for horse owners to use fecal egg counts before blanket deworming the horses in their car for years. However, until recently, no studies had been conducted to see if farms that used this method saw a true reduction in deworming.

Drs. Liselore Roelfstra, Marion Quartier and Kurt Pfister studied five farms in France and Switzerland that had switched to an evidence-based deworming protocol in 2014 to determine the long-term reduction rate of anthelmintic treatments.

The study used 90 horses and three ponies ranging in age from 3 to 32. All of the horses were housed at riding stables that used paddocks and pastures. There was no routine manure collection in the fields on three of the farms; the other two farms removed manure from fields at least once a week.

Since 2014, each horse had a fecal egg count performed twice a year, in the spring and fall. The horse only received a dose of dewormer if the analysis showed that he carried a worm burden of 200 eggs per gram or more. In total, 757 fecal egg counts were taken; only 34.7 of them had an egg count over 200, which resulted in the horse being given a dewormer.

This meant that 263 doses of dewormer were not given, which would have been routinely administered in the past. This shows an overall reduction in anthelmintic treatments of 65.3 percent.

The scientists conclude that conducting fecal egg counts is feasible on farms with multiple horse owners, and on farms with a transient equine population. Buy-in of the farm owner or manager was paramount, but all the horse owners were prepared to pay the cost of the fecal egg count test. An additional positive outcome was that the horses with high worm loads were able to be treated with the specific product needed to eliminate the parasites the horse is hosting.

The overall reduction in dewormer use shows the potential of fecal egg counts to slow the development of drug resistance.

Read the study here.

Read more at HorseTalk.

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New Study Shows Last Line of Defense Against Equine Parasites Beginning To Fail

New research shows that ivermectin and moxidectin dewormers are losing their efficacy again small strongyles. This is particularly troublesome as these drugs are the last lines of defense against the worms and no new dewormers are in the research pipeline.

The study was the first in the world to confirm small strongyle resistance through repeated testing. Resistance to two of the three deworming drug classes was confirmed years ago and it was predicted that small stronglyes would become resistant to macrocyclic lactones, a class of dewormers of which ivermectin and moxidectin are a part.

The study team included Dr. Martin Nielsen, Professor of Equine Infectious Disease at the M.H. Gluck Equine Research Center, Michael Banahan of Godolphin's Jonabell Farm in Kentucky, and Dr. Ray Kaplan, parasitologist in the Department of Infectious Diseases at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Georgia.

The team found that the efficacy of both ivermectin and moxidectin were reduced in a group of 50 imported Irish Thoroughbreds, though 50 US-bred horses on the same farm had no such resistance. The farm rigorously followed current guidelines for deworming and pulled fecal egg counts on all horses on the farm multiple times.

The horses were dewormed and tested multiple times over an eight-month period. The team concluded that the resistance to ivermectin and moxidectin was imported with the Irish horses. They note that this demonstrates how quickly resistant parasites can spread across the globe. They encourage farm and horse owners to utilize fecal egg count tests and to stringently follow deworming guidelines to attempt to increase the longevity of the efficacy of ivermectin and moxidectin.

Read the study here.

Read more at HorseTalk.

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