We would like to remind clients that we offer in-house faecal worm egg count testing- providing a convenient, rapid and reliable service to help keep your horses healthy.
Using faecal worm egg counts to decide when horses require worming (strategic dosing) is a more responsible way of dealing with parasite burdens in horses as it ensures only horses that have a worm burden are treated with wormers and will hopefully reduce the rate of resistance to equine worming products.
It is estimated that 20% of horses carry 80% of the worms, meaning that within a population of horses some horses may have very high worm burdens and others none. This is why using individual worm egg counts is so useful, as it means you will often save money by only worming those horses that actually need it.
Worm egg counts are used to identify horses with high worm burdens. Horses with worm egg counts (WEC) of greater than 200 eggs per gram require treatment with an appropriate wormer. Those with lower egg counts do not require worming. We recommend performing WECs every 8-10 weeks during the grazing period.
Faecal worm egg counts cannot be used to determine tapeworm or encysted redworm infection levels. We can offer a blood sample for Tapeworm ELISA.
Please speak to one of our equine vets if you need further advice on worming your horse or drop off a sample to our branch in Witheridge.
