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A Closer Look At: Best Deworming Practices For Horses

In this series, we ask some of the equine health questions you've wondered about but were too afraid to ask. Today, Dr. Chrissie Schneider, Senior Equine Professional Services Veterinarian with Merck Animal Health, tackles a few common questions about deworming horses.

How do dewormers work to fight parasites in horses?

Dr. Schneider: The drug compounds in horse dewormers target various metabolic processes in internal parasites. Malfunction of these metabolic processes causes the internal parasites to die. Importantly, the dewormers do not affect metabolic processes of the horse itself so they can safely be given to a horse (at manufacturer recommended doses) while causing death of the internal parasite.

How should an owner approach a horse with an unknown deworming history?

Dr. Schneider: A great place to start is to ask your veterinarian to perform a fecal egg count. A quantitative fecal egg count of a manure sample can provide a measurement in eggs per gram of the different internal parasites which are present. This information can guide decisions associated with frequency of deworming and determination of which deworming product is best to use. If the horse was dewormed recently (shortly before the current owner acquired the horse, for example) there may not be any parasite eggs in the sample. In that case, it would be wise to repeat the fecal egg count test in three months to reevaluate the horse's dewormer needs.

Dewormer drug resistance is a concern in the horse industry. What can a horse owner do to impact this developing problem?

Dr. Schneider: Resistance of internal parasites to the available dewormer drugs for horses has become a problem in some areas. To slow down development of parasite resistance to dewormers, it is helpful for us to remember our deworming goal. Our goal is NOT to eradicate internal parasites from our horses completely. That isn't possible and to try often means deworming horses very frequently – the opposite of what we want to do. Horses can and do live long, healthy lives with internal parasites present. Horses are dewormed to keep their burden of internal parasites low so that the horse does not develop illness related to their presence.

The current recommendation to slow down the development of parasite resistance to dewormer drugs is to employ strategic deworming for adult horses (those greater than three years of age). Strategic deworming means to deworm the horses shedding the most internal parasite eggs into the environment more frequently than we deworm the horses shedding very few parasite eggs. Your veterinarian can use fecal egg count tests to diagnose the shedding level for each horse on your farm and guide you in the appropriate deworming plan for them. This protocol decreases the overall internal parasite load on your farm while using the least amount of dewormer drugs possible. The more often parasites are exposed to dewormer drugs the more opportunities they have to evolve and acquire resistance to those drugs.

It's important to keep in mind that foals and young horses (less than three years of age) have unique internal parasite challenges and require different deworming management than adult horses. Work with your veterinarian to be sure you're appropriately deworming your young horses.

Are there non-drug ways to control internal parasites that horse owners can begin implementing?

Dr. Schneider: Yes! There are multiple farm management protocols that can help us control the burden of internal parasites in our horses. Employing these practices can contribute to a decrease in our horse's exposure to parasite eggs in their environment while using less dewormer drugs to do it. A win-win!

Farm management practices to control internal parasites on your farm include:

Avoid overstocking in pastures
Do not spread fresh manure on pastures.
- Properly composted manure can be safely spread on pastures as composting kills parasite eggs.
Remove manure from pastures frequently
Cross-graze pastures with cattle and/or sheep
Feed hay and grain up off the ground
Do not mix age groups in pastures

How easy/difficult is it to develop new drugs to fight parasites in horses — is there a solution in sight to the drug resistance issue?

Dr. Schneider: It has proven to be very difficult to develop new drugs to deworm horses and no new dewormer drugs for horses are on the horizon. This makes it vital that we preserve the efficacy of the dewormer drugs we have so we can keep our horses healthy for generations to come.

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Side Reins Help Grade 1 Winner Express Train Focus, Strengthen On The Way To The Starting Gates

All eyes were on Express Train the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on Saturday as he held off a late-charging Warrant to give trainer John Shirreffs his first win in the Big Cap. Eagle-eyed viewers of the TVG coverage of the day's stakes races may also have noticed something interesting before the race, as the 5-year-old headed to the paddock.

While most horses approach the saddling enclosure wearing only a bridle and halter, Express Train had a schooling pad and a pair of straps running from each side of the pad to his bit. Sport horse may recognize these as side reins, which come in many forms, often made of leather with some length of elastic and attached to a surcingle or saddle girth.

Shirreffs said that Express Train isn't the first of his horses to wear side reins on the way to the paddock, and he finds they have a couple of benefits for this particular horse. For one thing, they mimic the rein contact a rider will have when one is aboard, which Shirreffs feels helps Express Train focus.

“I use those because he doesn't really like a lip chain on him,” Shirreffs said. “He can get to playing and jumping around quite a bit. I put the side reins on, and it gives him a sense of control. When the rider gets on and picks up the reins, he calms down.

“I do it with a lot of horses who want to play too much.”

Of course, a groom walking with a horse in hand will often have a shank clipped to one side of the bit, but that provides one-sided directional control and could still allow a determined horse to wheel his hind end to hop and play. The dual-sided contact of the side reins seems to help Express Train focus forward as he awaits instruction.

Shirreffs said side reins also accomplish something similar in his racehorses that they can for dressage horses. For sport horses, they're most often used on a non-mounted horse who is being lunged or long lined to change the shape of a horse's stride by stretching and strengthening the back and hind end.

“That's the one thing racehorses don't get enough – they're not collected and riders don't use their legs to engage the hind end very well, so obviously this helps,” said Shirreffs.

Express Train and Victor Espinoza winning the Santa Anita Handicap

In the sport horse world, side reins are not without controversy. Like any piece of equipment, they can become harsh in rough or inexperienced hands. They should be introduced gradually and adjusted carefully so a horse isn't surprised or panicked by the sudden presentation of pressure on the bit. According to FEI dressage competitor Lisa Zinger, writing for Practical Horseman, side reins should not be used as shortcuts to force a horse's head down or his nose back, but rather should gently teach the horse that relaxing into a rein that has some tautness or “contact” in it. This will encourage a horse to develop the muscles over their topline and stretch through their back and neck.

Shirreffs has found, when he's able to lunge a horse, that adding a side rein on the horse's outside will help straighten the horse's body because it can offset the one-sidedness of the lunge line.

“They collect themselves a little better and it strengthens their topline,” he said.

Trainers and riders of horses on the track are increasingly bringing over principles and practices from the sport horse (and particularly the dressage) worlds into race training. Shirreffs said he has found some of those principles beneficial, and tries to employ them with exercise riders where possible.

“As far as training is concerned, I always tell the riders that as a horse pushes off with his hind legs, you need to just go down a little bit so he learns to extend off his hind legs, rather than to be in front of him and trying to get him to put his front feet down fast,” he said.

In dressage, riders usually refer to this as having the horse “in front of the [rider's] leg,” meaning the horse's momentum is coming from the hind end pushing the front half of the body forward, rather than the front end dropping down and pulling the back half along passively. For that type of riding, this is thought to produce a longer, more fluid stride and a more efficient use of the body.

Shirreffs said he's not sure whether he thinks this kind of cross-training will become more commonly accepted with time, but a lot will depend on the background of the people on the racetrack.

“It all depends upon the riders that are available, because it's something that's difficult to teach a rider, especially when they're used to galloping horses,” he said. “They're used to taking ahold of horses as they gallop around there. It's hard to tell them, 'You should push them.' It's a difficult concept for people to get.

“It's funny because I think one of the things riders don't realize is they can reward horses just by relaxing a little bit on the horse. Racehorses are big, strong, tough, and they're taught to pull. Obviously jockeys have very little use of their legs other than to stay on. The only thing they really have contact with the horse is their ankles. It's always the mouth. I always try to tell my riders, when the horse relaxes, relax your arms so there's a connection between, I did something right and I'm getting rewarded for it … pretty soon the horse is going to figure out his reward comes from not pulling so hard.”

Express Train is doing well after his effort on Saturday, Shirreffs said on Monday afternoon. At five years old, the horse has achieved a level of fitness and physical maturity that makes Shirreffs' job a bit easier. Ideally, a horse would go into a race on a fitness high but may lose some ground after a big effort; Express Train has reached a stage where Shirreffs said those peaks and valleys are much smoother, and it's more about maintaining fitness than building it back up.

“He's feeling very well,” said Shirreffs. “If you look at his past performance, he has run not every month but pretty close, every five weeks or somewhere in there. Now he comes out of his races almost as well as he went into his race.”

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New Study From Unique Herd That Hasn’t Been Dewormed In 40 Years

The University of Kentucky maintains a unique herd of horses that hasn't been dewormed since 1979.

According to Dr. Martin Nielsen, parasitologist at the University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Center, while the horses have a lot of parasites, they are healthy.

He and his team recently published a study describing parasite infection patterns in these horses over the course of a calendar year. Some of the findings include:

Mare pregnancy, foaling and lactation did not affect parasite fecal egg counts
There were no differences in parasite egg shedding between seasons
Horses had antibodies to the bloodworm (Strongylus vulgaris) throughout the year and the parasite was steadily detected in fecal samples
Mares passed these antibodies onto their foals through the colostrum

“We learn so much from this unique herd of horses,” Nielsen said. “First and foremost, they remind us that parasitism is a natural state, and that worms only extremely rarely cause disease or ill-thrift.”

Nielsen said that several of the findings made in the study were surprising. Seasonality in parasite egg shedding had been reported in other countries, and many people had speculated that pregnancy and foaling could affect parasite transmission.

“This study demonstrates the importance of investigating these things properly, and this research herd offers excellent opportunities for doing so,” he said.

The full scientific paper can be found here.

California: One New Orange County Property Under Quarantine After EHM Identified

One additional property in Orange County, Calif., has been placed under quarantine after a 10-year-old Warmblood gelding begin showing neurologic signs. On March 4, the horse tested positive for Equine Herpesvirus Myeloencephalopathy (EHM). Two additional horses on the property tested positive for EHV-1. These cases are not linked to any other current EHM incidents in California.

These cases are in addition to the 19 EHV-1 cases formerly found in one Orange County premise (one with EHM, 18 with fever only) and a second location with eight confirmed EHV cases: two EHM and six with fevers, but no neurologic signs.

The San Mateo County EHV outbreak location has had two additional EHV positive cases. In total, three EHM cases and 30 EHV-1, fever only cases have been confirmed.

In Riverside County, three additional horses on the index premise have displayed fevers and were confirmed with EHV-1. These horses are housed outside of the index barn that has been quarantined. To date, there have been three confirmed EHM cases and 30 confirmed EHV-1 cases with fever only at this location.

In LA County, there has been one confirmed case of EHM.

Notes: All premises are under an official quarantine, which will be lifted when all EHV positive horses have two consecutive negative tests seven days apart.

Get an EHM fact sheet here.

Get additional information at the Equine Disease Communication Center.

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