Baby Ruth may be sick.

[swissgrl]

Glad to hear she's feeling better.
I like the new name too, very pretty

[Tockita]

namaste said:

I also think Safeguard is one of the mildest safest wormers that is available to us...that being the case I personally would be somewhat hesitant to hit her with 4Way and West Nile simultaneoulsy. West Nile can make healthy horses sick and I have seen 4 way do the same? I would reccomend doing one at a time...with a few weeks inbetween....and when I say one at a time I mean Tet then Flu , then Enceph....etc...

A little more expensive...but way easier on a horse that is not at 100%.....
jmo

We suffered the worm issue with Dyna and we had wormed her twice with an Ivermectin. A few weeks apart (1/2 dose the first time) 3 weeks after the 1st dose she started acting colicy, just general discomfort, down and up frequently, but no rolling. When I spoke to Doc C he said she needed to be wormed with either an Anthelicide or Pyrantel Promate as he suspected round worm larvae were migrating, (common about 3 weeks after worming in heavily infested horses) He feels they are becoming epidemic in areas that do not rotate pastures properly.

So I was advised to worm her immediately, then "when she recovers from that" (thanks Doc I love you too!) to follow up with Panacur Power Pac. It is a 5 day treatment at a very high dosage (and double that dose for foals!) We opted to dose her twice at adult levels since Angi was concerned about toxicity. She is on her second round currently and has become increasingly playful and spunky since treatment began

[ebo]

If you want to do the Power Pack treatment, you can substitute Safe-Guard--one of the 290 gram tubes of the stuff, which is enough to do two horses, is about half the cost of the PP. It's marketed for cattle, but is the same class of drug and is given to horses in the same dosage as cattle (by weight). I order mine from Valley Vet, but you might do better at the local feedstore.

As to when to give it: I hadn't heard Tock's info about using it AFTER worming a horse with a severe infestation, but was instead told to do it once a year. The event should be early spring, just when the little baby worms start to hatch and move around. My information is a couple of years old, though it came from Dr. Eleanor Kellon, DMV, at the time. She also recommended a 5 day course of PowerPac or double Safe-Guard.

I hadn't heard about doubling the double dose for a foal. Or did I misinterpret?

[halfwayhome]

I will put a caveat here and let you know what some geriatric vets have advised us prior and it is much safer. DO NOT start with ivermectin or any of the combos on horses that are: emaciated or elderly or very young or any combination of the above. Give the horse a bit of time to settle in and get some decent feed into them, then give a 1/2 dose of Strongid or generic name: pyrantel pamoate paste, in a week if the horse handles that well or 2 weeks if it is hard on the horse, give another 1/2 dose, in this way you are not overloading the horse in poor condition with a toxic overload. THEN, in another month, go ahead and worm with either a full dose of Strongid, or if the horse is coming around well, a dose of plain Ivermectin. Do not give vaccines until the horses condition is better or until at least quarantined thru an incubation period. The only exception may be Tetanus antitoxin, if injured ,for immediate protection & Tetanus Toxoid for development of Tetanus antibodies and possibly strangles intranasal vaccine if
their is an outbreak and said horse is not running a temp or coming down with it already. Also, a couple days after each worming, reinnoculate the gut with Probiotics, paste form works easily or powder/pellet form if horse is wild or cannot be handled or you would prefer to feed daily. Vit C also works very well in horses with compromised immune systems, as do the B Vitamins. Another excellent and safe way with wild and unhandled horses is to feed the daily feed thru strongid pellet wormer, this has worked extremely well for me with horses that you need to start that have never had human contact. There are excellent dosing instructions depending on the condition and needs of the horse.

[Admin]

I agree with halfwayhome. Our vets recommended the same. After a few months and the vets ok we hit them with the Panacur 5 day power pack.

[Tate]

Shelly called today with the same concerns about my requests for her 4 way and west nile. To me it made sense to give a horse with a heart murmur the immunizations she needs to protect her, they do that with us humans...heart murmurs, compromised immune systems, etc, flu and pneumonia shots right away...but, after reading the posts and shelly's concerns, I told her to trust the vets opinion on the 4 way, but, not to give west nile. We'll have blood tests back too and will know a lot more. The coggins was my personal request and with the blood screening and nasal swab.

[Tockita]

Halfway and PEC, I agree in fact thats basically what I was told. We did start with a half dose, but it WAS ivermectin which is why the vet told me I was wasting my money giving her that since it was most likely round worms that we had possibly killed off some round worms but then after 3 weeks now had a huge number of migrating larvae making her very uncomfortable... Being Doc Doom and Gloom of course what he actually said "Well, what you have there is a dead foal walking" Then yes told me to give her pyrantel pamoate or even an athelicide but not Ivermectin.

As for the dosage.. On the Power Pak tubes themselves are doses by weight and the foal weight dose is twice the adult dose but it is. The line for a 500 horse is the same for a 250 lb foal.

I did notice that the strength of the dose on the power pack is much higher then the regular panacur, so I'm sure you could use the other stuff. She was just so uncomfortable I went ahead and ordered the Power Pak to have it ready a few weeks after the non Ivermectin wormer. It was worth the money to KNOW I was using what the vet felt was best. There was enough in it that shes getting a second mini series and there is enough left to do Dino too! She is feeling SO much better these days, and lets us worm her without even putting a halter on her.

[ebo]

I think that regular panacur is a 5% mixture, but you can buy a 10% mixture if you go off label. They also now make a drench for horses that don't like gooey paste in their porridge, and don't believe in wormer at all (Handsome), which I think is nice of the Safe-Guard people.

I've been buying liquid ivermectrin for eons, at a very reasonable price, by using the cow injectable. I asked the vet if that was okay to do, and he told me: "Ivermectin is Ivermectin".