Vegetable oils are often added to equine diets to supplement fat and energy, but adding flaxseed oil (also called linseed oil) now has an additional equine health benefit: it can significantly reduce strongyle load in horses. This finding is especially important as strongyles have become more resistant to available deworming medications.
A Polish study added pure flaxseed oil to the diet of 15 Thoroughbred and 12 Arabian horses that were fed oats, muesli, and hay three times a day. The horses were separated into four groups fed soybean oil, flaxseed oil, flaxseed oil and vitamin E, and one group with no added oil that served as a control. Lead researcher Dr. Wanda Górniak had the horses dewormed with ivermectin and praziquantel in February 2020.
In June 2020, researchers performed fecal egg counts on samples from the horses. The researchers found that 25 of the 27 horses had worms, with strongyles the most prevalent; one-third of the horses also had threadworms. The horses that had been fed flaxseed oil have the lowest prevalence of strongyles (71 percent compared to 100 percent in other groups).
The scientists concluded that the adding flaxseed oil to a horse's diet significantly reduces its strongyle worm load.
Read the study here.
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