Best Deworming Schedule For Horses

Deworming your horses is an essential part of horse care. Not only does it keep them healthy, but it can also help to improve their performance. The frequency that you need to deworm your horse will depend on the number of parasites they have.

In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the importance of deworming and how to go about it. The first step in deworming a horse is to create a schedule. Here in this blog, we will discuss the best deworming schedule for horse, the protocol to deworm your horse, and why deworming is vital in horses.

Depending on the amount of worms your parasite sheds in their feces, you should deworm a horse two, three, or four times per year.

You should perform a fecal egg count of worms in your horse in order to determine how often to deworm them.

How often to deworm a horse?

A horse that is a low shedder (<200 Eggs Per Gram Of Manure) should be dewormed twice a year.
A horse that is a moderate shedder (Egg Count Between 200 To 500 EPG) should be dewormed three times per year.
Horses that are high shedders (Egg Count More Than 500 EPG) should be dewormed four times per year.

If you need guidance on which dewormer to use, you should check out my article on the best dewormer for horses.

Adult Horse Deworming Schedule

Now that you know how often to deworm a horse, you should know the best deworming schedule of what product to use and when to apply it.

For Low Shedder Horses (<200 Eggs Per Gram Of Manure)

In (March) spring deworming should be with Ivermectin and moxidectin.
In (October) fall deworming is done with praziquantel and Ivermectin.

For Moderately Shedding Horses (Egg Count Between 200 To 500 EPG)

Spring deworming (March) is done with Ivermectin and moxidectin.
In late summer, deworm with Ivermectin
In (October) fall deworming is done with praziquantel and Ivermectin.

For High Shedder Horse (Egg Count More Than 500 EPG)

Fecal egg count should be done before deworming in spring and fall season.
In (March) spring deworming is done with Ivermectin and moxidectin.
Summer deworming is done with Ivermectin.
In early fall, use Ivermectin and praziquantel.
In late fall, deworming should be performed with moxidectin.

Foal Deworming Schedule

Foals have a slightly different deworming schedule compared to adult horses. Here is how the deworming schedule is followed in foals:

In foals deworming should be started at two months of age with fenbendazole or oxibendazole.
At the age of 4 to 5 months, perform fecal egg count technique to check the presence of strongyles and ascarids.
Treat ascarids with oxibendazoles and strongyles with Ivermectin.
Before the end of one year, deworm them with praziquantel and ivermectin plus.
At the age of one year, perform fecal egg count, check for the presence of ascarids, and if you find it treat it with oxibendazole or fenbendazole.
In the yearling year, check fecal egg count for strongyles and deworm three times with Ivermectin and onetime with praziquantel.
You should check the efficacy of dewormers by checking the fecal count every season to see if there is a reduction.

How To Deworm A New Horse?

When you get a new horse, it’s important to worm them before mixing in the herd. You can deworm them with a single product or a combination of products. Keep your horse separate after giving wormer for 48 hours to ensure the wormer is properly applied.

How To Prevent Worms In Horses?

A horse’s life is a constant battle between what it encounters in the wild and how that affects its health. There are several internal and external parasites that horses are exposed to. If there is a low concentration of worms in your horse, then their health is not at risk, but if the worm count is high, it can lead to severe health problems.

Worms are pesky little things that love to make your horse’s stomach feel queasy. To control them, you need to keep the pasture clean and use a targeted approach when deworming. How do you know if your horse needs deworming? A simple test will estimate how many parasite eggs are present in their droppings.

How does Pasture Management Help With Worm Control?

Worms get in your horse through contaminated manure. It’s incredible how a tiny red worm can develop from an egg in manure to its juvenile stage just five days later. This worm can travel for a meter in dry weather conditions and almost three meters in wet weather conditions.

To minimize the risk of your horse being exposed to worms, it is essential to control their grazing. There are a number of ways we can do this, and one way would be by rotational pasturing, which helps reduce the exposure time for your horse in certain areas while also ensuring they get enough grass. Other things you should do are

Pick the droppings of your horse from the grazing field; this will control the growth of parasitic worms.
You should pick up the horse dropping at least twice a week in warmer weather.
Make sure that the muck heap is away from the grazing field.
Allow cattle and sheep to graze in the field where your horse grazes because they act as a natural cleaner of worms. Horse worms are not able to survive in cattle and sheep.
Do not allow your horse to overgraze in an area because they will graze close to the ground where their droppings are, and this can expose them to many parasites.
You should also follow general hygiene guidelines for your horse. I recommend that your try to groom your horse everyday or at least every other day. To learn more, check out my article on how to groom a horse.

How To Deworm Your Horse The Right Way?

You should weigh your horse before you worm them to ensure they receive the correct dose. If you need help, you should consult your vet on how to weigh your horse.
Give the horse enough time to chew and swallow before giving them more medicine. If they spit it out, tilt their head up so that it goes down properly.
Make sure that the horse does not spit even a small amount of dose.
If you don’t have experience with horses and worms, hire an experienced ranch hand for the first couple of times.

Conclusion

Horses are delicate animals, and it is important to follow a schedule with deworming so they don’t suffer from this problem again. There are many reasons why deworming your horse is essential. Some of them include preventing parasites from entering the body, maintaining a healthy weight, and keeping their immune system strong. You can do this by following the best deworming schedule in your horse throughout the year.