Worms!

This morning, i received the results of Jason's 'poo' sample!!

With both Albert and now Jason, insted of blindly worming every 3 months as we all used to, I now send poo samples off to a lab specializing in worm egg counts. The aim is to only worm when the horses need it, not only saving money, but more importantly, not filling the animal with unnessacery chemicals.

When I took Albert on in March this year, his worm count was >1400epm. A rule of thumb is after worming a sample will be <50epm and when the horse needs worming it will be around 250epm. So, as you can imagine, I had my work cut out sorting Albert so as to gently, but efficiently clear him of internal parasites.

When I received the email from the lab, I was expecting a result much the same as Albert's. To my surprise and great relief, Jason's count was <50epm! Thankfully he has been kept upto date with worming.

I once had a little NF filly who had been bred on the forest. She had such a bad infestation of worms, that sadly she died shortly after coming to me of peritonitis. The damage was already too bad for worming treatments to correct. This is why I am now very careful and cautious with regard to worms.