Bots: Where Fecal Egg Counts Fail

A fecal egg count test is a common horse health practice designed to combat the overuse of equine dewormers and consequent drug resistance. Though the test is helpful in determining which horses need to be treated for parasites, there is one parasite that escapes being found on the screening: bots.

Fecal egg counts don't show the bot load a horse is carrying because bot eggs are not found in horse manure. Bot flies lay eggs on a horse's body, often on the lower legs and chest. As the horse licks the eggs, they hatch and he swallows the larvae, where they enter his digestive tract. The larvae, not eggs, leave via manure and the process begins again.

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Bot fly eggs look like small yellow grains of rice that stick to horse's hair. To remove them, horse owners can use a bot knife, which has a serrated blade, or a fiberglass block, which grabs and removes the eggs.

If bot fly eggs are removed diligently throughout the year, a horse owner may be able to skip deworming for bots – the horse will be fine if he ingests a few. If the horse isn't groomed regularly, however, it's worthwhile to give him a single dose of moxidectin or ivermectin after the first frost.

Read more at EQUUS.

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Eastern Tent Caterpillar Egg Hatch Now Underway In Kentucky

Eastern tent caterpillars have begun to hatch, with the first instances being seen in Southern Kentucky this week and expected in Central Kentucky by early to mid-next week and Northern Kentucky a few days to a week after that, according to entomologists in the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment.

According to Jonathan Larson, UK extension entomologist, after spending about nine months as eggs in masses on twigs of wild cherry and related trees, the first tiny eastern tent caterpillars of the season are now leaving their eggs. The egg hatch normally occurs at forsythia bloom, which is just beginning.

The larvae are among the first insects to become active in the spring and are well-equipped to cope with Kentucky's erratic temperature swings.

According to UK's entomology researchers, egg hatch occurs over several weeks in early spring. This increases the chance for survival in case of late freezes. The caterpillars grow and develop when the temperature is above 37 degrees F. Their preferred food plants are wild cherry, apple and crabapple, but they may appear on hawthorn, maple, cherry, peach, pear and plum as well.

When mature, the 2- to 2.5-inch long, hairy caterpillars have a habit of wandering from their host trees to seek protected areas to spin their cocoons, or to seek additional food if their natal tree becomes defoliated. At such times, they may crawl along fence lines and into pastures.

Consumption of large numbers of caterpillars by pregnant mares caused staggering foal losses in the Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome outbreak of 1999-2001. MRLS can cause early- and late-term foal losses or weak foals. UK researchers conducted studies that revealed horses will inadvertently eat the caterpillars when present in pastures and feedstuffs. It is the caterpillar hairs, specifically the cuticles of those hairs, that embed into the lining of the horse's alimentary tract. Once that protective barrier is breached, normal alimentary tract bacteria may gain access to and reproduce in sites with reduced immunity, such as the fetus and placenta.

If practical, farm managers should move pregnant mares from areas where wild cherry trees are abundant to minimize the chance of caterpillar exposure. The threat is greatest when the mature caterpillars leave trees and wander to find places to pupate and transform to the moth stage.

Eastern tent caterpillars are also a nuisance to people living near heavily infested trees. The nests and defoliation are unsightly, and the caterpillars may wander hundreds of yards in search of protected sites to spin cocoons and pupate.

“Managing ETC in small ornamental trees, such as flowering crabapples, is easy. Just wear a pair of grocery store plastic bags like mittens, climb a stepladder, pull out the tents, turn the bags inside out to 'bag' the caterpillars and stomp them,” said Daniel Potter, UK entomology professor. “Pruning out nests in ornamental trees sounds great, but in reality, by the time they are noticed, they're often in branch crotches where pruning will compromise the symmetry of the tree.

“Spraying the flowering fruit and decorative trees preferred by the caterpillars can be a bee hazard – and with some products, a label violation – because the trees are in bloom with bees visiting them at the same time eastern tent caterpillars are active,” he said.

According to Potter, caterpillar management around horse farm paddocks comes down to keeping pregnant mares away from infested trees and either removing or not planting preferred host trees near paddocks. In addition to those preventive measures, controlling the caterpillars with insecticides may be warranted in some settings. That may require treating tall trees that are difficult to spray.

For the latter scenario, professional arborists treat via trunk injection. Products labeled for eastern tent caterpillar control include Tree-äge (emamectin benzoate), Inject-A-Cide B (Bidrin), Abacide 2 (abamectin) and Lepitect (acephate). Applicators should read and follow all label instructions. All four of those injectable products are labeled for use on horse farms.

For farms that are interested in prevention over the winter months, Larson recommended farms search for and destroy egg masses before they hatch.

“Egg masses can be seen over the winter, they look like sparkly, pyrite gum wrapped around twigs and branches,” he said.

For more information about how to assess trees for egg masses, the UK Entomology publication, Checking Eastern Tent Caterpillar Egg Masses, is available here.

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Easy-To-Implement Ways To Reduce Parasite Resistance

Currently, equine internal parasites can resist all classes of dewormers on the market. This is especially concerning as internal parasites can cause so much harm—and there are no new dewormers on the horizon. However, there are some things horse owners can do to keep horses healthy naturally, reports The Horse.

Veterinarians originally recommended that horses be dewormed every two months, as that was when parasitologists began seeing worm eggs returning. Now, strategic deworming and an integrated approach to parasite management is preferred. This includes only deworming the horses that need it and not blanket deworming all horses on the farm.

Other ways to prevent worm burdens include:

  • Quarantining new horses—this includes not turning them out on fields other horses will eventually use. The point is to keep the horse and the worms it os carrying separate long enough for the eggs to pass through his system.
  • Feeding off the ground to prevent ingestion of larvae
  • Ensuring feed and water sources are not contaminated with manure
  • Removing manure piles before eggs hatch
  • Composting manure at temperatures above 104 degrees F to destroy eggs and larvae
  • Keeping grass taller than 3 inches to minimize larvae ingestion
  • Dragging fields on hot days to expose larvae in manure to temperatures they cannot survive
  • Implementing pasture rotation, which disrupts the parasite life cycle
  • Stocking pastures with an appropriate number of horses (one horse per acre at minimum) to reduce grazing around manure
  • Renovating pastures for better forage options
  • Including other species in the pastures with horses so different plants get eaten

Read more at The Horse.

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