This is a invaluable way of finding out if the wormer you are using are working effectively for your horse.

Prior to your horse being wormed we will perform a faecal worm egg count and record the results, you then worm your horse as you would normally.

Around 14 days post worming(varies with drug) we will perform another egg count, we then calculate the results from pre worming and post worming there should be at least a 90% decrease in eggs shown to find out if there is any worm resistance with the type of wormer you are using.

If there is resistance we need to look at the ingredients of the wormer that you are using and pasture management and devise a worming programme that will control the worm burden.

Just because you have de-wormed your horse it doesn't mean that you have a effective worming programme in place, you could have resistance.

What is Anthelmintic Resistance?

Resistance is when the drug being used in the wormer isn't killing all of the internal parasites. These worms then breed with the other internal worms until there are more and more worms becoming resistant to the wormer used.

All horses have a different level of resistance and shed eggs differently so you could have several horses being managed the same way and being wormed with the exact same wormer but then can all have a different level of worm burden

We split the variations into 3 shedding categories. Low shedders (0-200 epg) medium shedders (200-500 epg) and high shedders (500+ epg).

At equine endo we treat each horse as individuals what works for one horse will not necessarily work for another

By doing regular FEC we can begin to get a understanding of the level of burden your horse has and what level of shedding they do. The outcome is that in time your horse will be a low shedder and will only need minimal worming for encysted red worm and tape worm.