Wormy horse... Mine!

[StefffiC]

My horse has a pinworm problem. She's been dropping weight this year, this is the second fecal we've done and she has a huge pinworm population. The farm vet is out of town and dealing with me on the phone, small animal vet did the fecal today for me.

She's Cushings and I've only been doing a Panacur Purge once a year. Obviously NOT enough.

What will get rid of Pinworms? I need to worm for tapes and bots, too?

I could find this elsewhere, but I don't have time to look.

[Hampton Bay]

Just because she is Cushings doesn't mean you cannot worm her. If she can tolerate a PP, I'm sure she can tolerate being wormed normally every other month.

Pretty much anything will get rid of pinworms, but I would do Equimax to also do tapes. It will take care of bots too.

[StefffiC]

She gets laminitis when we worm, so since she lives alone and is NOT in a herd the PP once a year worked for us until I moved to the new farm... It's a big breeding farm and she's been in and out as a babysitter and such.

The Equimax/Zimectrin Gold can NOT be given to cushings horses most of the time. There was a tape wormer before that? Double dose Strongid?

We're going with a daily wormer after we get this under control.

[Hampton Bay]

Double Strongid will get tapes, but not bots.

Pinworms are very very contagious, both within and across species. I know for dogs and humans, they recommend treating the whole family or all of the dogs in the household, and then retreating two weeks later. Otherwise they just come back.

[StefffiC]

I wonder where she got Pins at? I've done two PPs this year, once in March as usual and once about a month ago.

She's carrying a huge wormload to be this close to a PP.

I do fecals 4x a year, and haven't had this much of a wormload EVER!

[Hampton Bay]

If she's been in and out with other horses at a breeding farm, especially if they take any outside mares, then that is the likely source. All it takes is a couple pinworm eggs to get into her mouth, and they multiply like mad. Aside from the itching though, they really are fairly harmless. They don't encyst into the intestinal walls or migrate through other organs.

Just make sure you wash your hands really well after touching around her hiney or handling any manure, because you can get them too. They are really common in kids especially.