05/20/2024
Four State Update! Learn more with Four State Veterinary Services!
Let’s keep talking parasites! As parasite season pushes forward, it’s important to talk about treatment options. There are many myths and inaccuracies when it comes to using dewormers and with these products readily available over the counter, this can be dangerous for your herd or flock! So, let’s dive into some common questions and even more common inappropriate practices.
1. The most common question when it comes to dewormers: what’s the best dewormer to use for my animals? ANSWER: it’s far more complicated than that! There is no such thing as “the best dewormer for all farms”. Instead, dewormer efficacy is completely farm and even animal specific. Remember that resistance development is associated with overuse of dewormers and parasites surviving the therapeutic dose of the dewormer. Even if one worm survives the deworming, that worm can create a whole generation of worms that will survive when that dewormer is used again. So, if you have animals from lots of different farms, they may have worms with all sorts of different resistant parasites. Moral of the story: there’s no one size fits all “best” dewormer!
2. Almost all dewormers DO NOT require an additional dose to be given. It’s been common to hear people recommend giving a follow up dose of dewormer at 10, 12, or 14 days after the initial dose. This is not necessary. The only dewormers that are recommended for multi-day use are the “white wormers” (fenbendazole- Safeguard or Panacur and albendazole- Valbazen) and it is typically recommended to use daily for up to 3 days. All other dewormers are best used with a “one treatment and done” model in mind!
3. This was mentioned in another post recently but should be mentioned again! When selecting a dewormer for sheep, goats, alpacas, and llamas, it is important to use ONLY products that are made to go orally AND made for sheep and goats. Using an injectable cattle or swine product orally or a topical cattle product orally is not appropriate for sheep, goats, alpacas, or llamas.
4. To round out the discussion, rotating dewormers is a practice that was formerly recommended to try and fight resistance. We now recognize that this practice leads to resistance in ALL the dewormers being used in rotation much faster! So, use a dewormer until it stops working! How do you know it’s working? FECALS!!! Run them yourself or have your veterinarian run them for you. If you are using dewormers on your animals, you should be running f***ls before the dewormer is used and then doing a follow up f***l 10-14 days later! This is the ONLY way we can really know how well a dewormer is working.
5. Oh! And. NEVER BLANKET DEWORM. This means that the entire flock or herd should never be given dewormer at the same time. This goes for entire groups of animals as well- for example, if you deworm all animals after they give birth (another inappropriate practice) and 8/10 of your animals give birth that year, you are blanket deworming! Remember, 20% of your animals carry 80% of the parasites!
Need more info? Check out the American Consortium for Small Ruminant Parasite Control and their website (wormx.info). If you don't have a veterinarian as parasite season continues to ramp up, !!!!! Don't wait until it's a parasite emergency!!!
Photos: McMaster slide used to count f***l eggs and get an accurate number down to 50 eggs per gram. A FAMACHA score card- FAMACHA score as much as possible this summer!
