Introduction

Why are the Chair of Institute for Comparative Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, LMU and the Veterinary Clinic Thurmading endorsing a new method of "selective deworming for the horse"?

The unequivocal answer to it is:

There is an already alarming resistance against various equine deworming preparations.

The reasons for this resistance is caused by well-intentioned strategies and measures such as:

• regular deworming (without controls)
• too frequent and unnecessary deworming
• wrong dosage (mostly by wrong weight appraisals of the horses)
• frequent and strategic deworming (always 4x in the year / always varying preparations, etc...)
• having no knowledge effectiveness of the deworming (Fecal Egg Counts are seldom or never carried out)
• deworming without previous diagnostics on the individual horse
• deworming without knowledge of what kind of parasite is present in the entire stock

This can be compared to resistance developed against ANTIBIOTICS.

Like the resistance developed against antibiotics the deworming preparations lose their effectiveness.

Note to the reader: it is not the horses that have become resistant to certain deworming preparations. Rather certain kinds of worms have become resistant against the deworming preparations.

This alarming resistance has caused leading parasitologist to develop a new approach in the fight against parasites.

As a result a NEW method to control parasites was developed:

"Selective deworming for the horse"

Here are some important points:

• "Selective deworming of the horse" is based on continuous monitoring of fecal egg counts (a quantitative fecal egg count is performed before the administration of dewormer and then repeated)
• The "egg counts" by the fecal examination (of the single horse or herd) will be:
  
  • analyzed
  • documented and
  • evaluated

Then a special deworming program will be developed for your horse.

The owners and (unless prohibited by the owners) stable owners will receive a summary over the egg count including what kind of eggs were found and amounts.

The individual horse or the herd will have scientific bases for its deworming program.