It is natural for healthy horses to have some parasites. Craig Reinemeyer DVM PhD, a renowned expert on equine parasitology states the problem well.“Equine parasites have co-evolved with the horse over 60 million years of evolution. They are unique to the horse, and they can only survive if the horse survives. It doesn’t make sense that to burn down their only home. We need to manage parasites, not eradicate them. Our efforts at eradication are what have led us quickly to resistance.”As horse owners and caretakers, it is very important that you take an intelligent approach to parasite control. Simply worming your horses with a rotation of deworming pastes is no longer considered the best approach. Of course, you need to keep parasite numbers managed in your horses. But that need has to be balanced with better methods if we are going to slow the onset of resistance.There are more than 150 species of internal parasites that affect horses. The most important groups include:– Ascarids (Roundworms)- Large strongyles (Bloodworms)- Small Strongyles– Pinworms– Bots– TapewormsInternal parasites have a life-cycle that involves stages within the horse and stages in the environment. Parasites released into the environment take time to develop to infectious stages. The climate must be right for this development to take place. Management to reduce parasites therefore must take into account the parasites likely to be encountered, their life cycles and your geographic region’s climate.Most species have stages (eggs or larvae) that are passed from horse to pasture in manure. Any or all of these parasites may be present in the horse at one time, and may be at different stages in their life cycles. Some worm species can lay hundreds of thousands of eggs per day, so parasite loads can grow quickly both on pasture and in horses. The different de-wormers have varying effectiveness against the types and stages of parasites. Intelligent control of parasites must take all these factors and many others into account.Horses with parasites can show a wide variety of signs. The specific signs depend upon the specific parasites affecting them, and the numbers of those particular parasite species.It is common knowledge that heavy parasite loads can cause problems for horses, including gastrointestinal irritation and damage, reduced nutrient uptake and generally poor health. Horses affected by large parasite loads look like we would expect them to: pot-bellied, rough coated and thin. They may experience colic or have diarrhea.
Specific parasites cause specific conditions, depending upon the organs they affect. Here are some examples, but there are many, many more:– Pinworms cause skin irritation and itching to the area around the anus and tail head. – Thelazia eye worms cause eye inflammation. – Large strongyles can cause life-threatening damage. The adults of this species localize in the large arteries supplying blood to the intestine. They can result in loss of blood supply to segments of intestine, a potentially fatal problem which results in signs of colic. – Bots are not thought to cause much problem at all, although the egg-laying adult flies are highly irritating to horses. – The most common species of Tapeworm lives in a specific segment of small intestine, and in large numbers can cause irritation and blockage of the intestine. – Lungworms are common in donkeys and cause coughing, usually in horses stabled with donkeys. – Large roundworms in young horses (Ascarids), can cause ill thrift and, at times, complete obstruction of the intestine that usually occurs after deworming. – Habronema worms transmitted by flies cause non-healing wounds called Summer Sores.Certain parasite stages can damage vital tissues like lungs or liver causing illness related to that organ. This usually occurs as larval stages migrate through the horse’s system to complete their life cycles.Small numbers of intestinal parasites usually don’t cause obvious visible illness in horses. The parasites operate “behind the scenes”. Horses may look perfectly healthy, or show only very subtle signs. And you wouldn’t expect to see anything in the manure – parasite eggs and the worms themselves are mostly tiny or microscopic and so are rarely visible in manure.Over the past half-century, deworming compounds have been developed that have drastically reduced parasite problems in horses. “Thrombo-embolic colic” was a common and often fatal condition involving blockage of the blood supply to parts of the intestine. The condition is caused by Strongylus vulgaris, the large Strongyle. This worm has almost been eliminated by the worming campaign of the last 40 years and so this condition is now very rare.
There are far fewer severe parasite-related problems than there were 40 years ago. There have been several main “chemical classes” of dewormers that have been developed over that time. These have drastically reduced the number of parasites in horses. But the cost of this effective campaign has been the development of resistance to these compounds, especially in small Strongyle parasites. This has resulted in the growing ineffectiveness of these drugs. Recently, researchers have shown that this resistance is a greater problem than we thought, and that it is progressing rapidly. We are beginning to see resistance to even our newest and most potent chemical class.
Before the advent of paste dewormers, veterinarians were very involved in equine parasite control. Veterinarians typically tube-wormed horses, meaning that they passed a stomach tube and dosed a large quantity of the chosen chemical directly into the stomach. In the last 25 years, paste formulations of the common chemical classes have become increasingly available and very cheap. Horse owners have rotated dewormers casually, not understanding the problem, and under the false assumption that “more is better”. Veterinarians, including myself, were complicit in this approach. Ten years ago, I consistently recommended a fast rotation program to my clients without understanding the potential implications.
We now need to completely re-think how we deworm our horses. Misconception and lack of awareness by the whole industry has led to the development of a very large problem.
Fecal egg counts involve microscopic examination of manure for quantifying the number of parasite eggs of different types. We have learned certain things about equine parasites from doing fecal egg counts. We know we can make the worms disappear from the manure by using deworming compounds. We assumed that if we rotated compounds, that parasites that were not killed by one class, would be killed by the next. This idea worked well when the 3 main chemical classes each killed the majority of parasites. However, this is becoming less and less true.
Key Points
Two out of three main classes of chemical no longer kill parasites adequately. Parasites have become resistant to them. Their continued indiscriminate use will quickly result in complete resistance.
Rotation using ineffective compounds ensures complete resistance to them while creating a false sense of security. The potency of the effective dewormers “covers up” the inadequacy of the others in the rotation.
We are already seeing pockets of resistance to ivermectin and moxidectin and it is inevitable that this will increase. Use of these compounds without fecal testing will ensure a short effective life for them.
There are no new chemical compounds in the works right now. Research and development is costly and takes time. Our emphasis should be on extending the effectiveness of the drugs we have.
Understanding Parasite Resistance
Parasites develop resistance to the chemicals used to kill them. Resistance is based on individual worm genetics and selection for these genetic traits, i.e. natural selection. Most parasites are killed by a properly administered and effective dewormer. Out of thousands of worms, there may be a few surviving (resistant) parasites that have genetic differences that allow them to tolerate the chemical.
These few survivors can then occasionally interbreed with other similarly resistant parasites, leading to a higher number of resistant parasites in the next generation. These offspring survive and propagate, resulting in the next generation being comprised of even more resistant parasites. The process is invisible to the horse owner.
