Worms can pose a serious health risk to your horse, so it is important that you take steps to reduce the danger from worms, and you have a clear horse worming schedule in place.
There are some simple things that you can do to reduce the likelihood of worms in your horse. Firstly, you need to remove all faeces from the pasture to reduce the number of eggs present. It is also important that you do not overstock pastures because this increases the chance of worms developing and spreading amongst your horses. Sharing pastures with sheep and cows can also help to manage worms because they will not develop in non-equine animals. Finally, you need to rotate pastures regularly and rest them for 3 months. Sunlight and frost will help to kill off worm eggs and larvae during these periods.
However, even if you take these steps, there is always the danger that your horse will develop worms, so you need to have a good horse worming schedule in place. Unfortunately, that can be difficult because each horse will carry different levels of worm burdens and require a personalized worming program.
The first step is to carry out a worm egg count. You can buy one from our store and then post off your sample. The results will be sent back to us so we can recommend the most suitable worming products for your horse and set up a yearly horse worming program.
When you are following the horse worming program that we recommend for you, there are a few vital rules that you need to follow. It is very important that you only worm your horse when necessary. Horses have evolved with parasites and a small population of worms will not damage their health. However, if you expose these small populations to worming products, they will develop a resistance and this makes it harder to maintain a good horse worming schedule in future. We will create the ideal horse worming schedule for you so you know exactly when you need to use the products, so you don’t need to worry about this.
Underdosing can be a big problem as well because some worms will survive and those worms will develop a resistance to the horse worming products, which makes things difficult in future. Even if the horse spits out a small amount of the paste, that can lead to underdosing, so it’s vital that you make sure they swallow all of it. When we create a horse worming schedule for you, we will give you the correct amount of worming product for the size of the horse. You just need to make sure that they take it all.
Horse worming is a vital part of horse care, but it can be quite complex and if you get it wrong, you risk opening your horse up to potential health problems. But we can protect the health of your horse by creating the perfect horse worming schedule for you. Get in touch today to learn more about how we can help with all of your horse worming needs.
