Understanding Effective Parasite Management

  

With the impending arrival of spring, now is a good time to evaluate and update your parasite management plan for your horses.  Parasite infestations can lower a horse's resistance to infection, rob them of valuable nutrients, and can cause detrimental damage to the internal organs before it is too late to fix.  Effective parasite management is about more than selecting the proper dewormer for your horse - it is also important to develop a complete management plan to break the continual cycle (below) on your pastures.

First and foremost, proper parasite management begins with providing clean, plentiful water and high quality feed and forage for your horses.  According to the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the following guidelines are also important to follow:

• Keep the number of horses per acre to a minimum to prevent overgrazing and pasture contamination with parasite eggs and larvae.
• Dispose of manure regularly.
• Do not spread manure on fields that are to be grazed by horses;  compost it in a pile away from the pasture.
• Mow and harrow pastures periodically.
• Use a feeder for hay and grain rather than feeding on the ground.
• Remove bot eggs regularly from the horse's coat.
• Keep foals and weanlings away from yearlings to  reduce exposure to ascarids and other parasites.
• Perform fecal egg counts to determine the amount of eggs your horse is shedding.
• Set up an effective deworming program with your veterinarian and monitor its effectiveness through fecal-egg counting.

While no dewormer is 100% effective in ridding your horses of all species of parasites (there are over 150 species!), beginning with these simple considerations will allow the deworming program your veterinarian recommends to be more successful. More information on the AAEP's guidelines can be found at https://aaep.org/guidelines/parasite-control-guidelines.