Questionnaire survey on helminth control practices in horse farms in Ireland

Abstract

Knowledge regarding helminth control strategies and nematode infection of horses in Ireland is limited and only one study has been published recently. This present study was designed to investigate the current helminth control strategies followed by horse owners in Ireland. A questionnaire was formulated to collect data on general grazing, pasture management and deworming strategies including the use of fecal egg counts. Questionnaires were emailed to 700 members of the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association and Horse Sport Ireland. Only 78 questionnaires were returned. Respondents indicated that horses are grazed for 16–24 h day−1 during the summer and autumn (89% and 65%, respectively). Removing feces from the pasture was implemented by 37.6% of respondents. Few (22.2%) owners kept horses off pasture after worming. Overall, ivermectin and moxidectin were the most commonly administered anthelmintics in 2014 by 75% and 62% of respondents, respectively. Benzimidazole and pyrantel drugs were used by 53% and 35% of respondents, respectively. The majority of farms (81.4%) treated horses 4–5 times per year and 74.2% only estimated the weight of the horses visually. The findings of this study illustrates that many stud managers/owners do not follow best practice with regard to helminth control and more education is needed.

Parasite Occurrence and Parasite Management in Swedish Horses Presenting with Gastrointestinal Disease—A Case–Control Study

“…No differences in parasite control strategies between cases and controls were found in the present study. ML was the most commonly used anthelmintic group overall, in accordance with several previous publications from various countries [50][51][52][53][54][55]. However, within the study population as a whole, differences in anthelmintic routines were present, with 28.8% of the owners deworming their horses on a routine basis without prior parasitic diagnostics.…”

“…Similar to a previous study on parasite control strategies in Sweden [25], only a minority of owners used alternating grazing species (9.8%), one method to reduce pasture contamination. This is low compared to some countries, such as Ireland, where co-grazing was used by the majority of owners [55]. However, most owners in the present study employed the use of separate winter and summer grazing areas.…”

Importation of macrocyclic lactone resistant cyathostomins on a US thoroughbred farm

“…In light of this, it is a genuine surprise that the first case of full-fledged ML resistance was diagnosed in horses imported from Ireland. A recent survey conducted in Ireland documented that parasite control programs adopted by the equine industry there (including Thoroughbred farms) were not following current recommendations, with little or no diagnostic monitoring of parasite presence and treatment efficacy, and frequent administration of anthelmintic treatments with heavy reliance on ML products ( Elghryani et al, 2019 ). Thus, several similar risk factors for development of ML resistance were also present in Ireland.…”

A survey of control strategies for equine small strongyles in Lithuania

“…Compared with Ireland (Elghryani et al, 2019), Lithuanian horse owners deworm at a similarly frequency (Table 1). In Ireland, horses of various ages are treated between four and five times a year with an average of four different drugs (Elghryani et al, 2019). Equine establishments in Italy treat horses at 4 -8 week intervals with rapid drug rotation all year round (Papini et al, 2015), and a similar British study reports a median of six annual treatments with two or three different drugs (Lloyd et al, 2000).…”

“…One of the risk factors in the development of AR is an inaccurate dose of the anthelmintic drug (Graef et al, 2013). In Lithuania calculation of doses on the vast majority of the participating farms (69 %) was done based on a visual assessment of horse weight, as is the case in other countries: Ireland (74 %) (Elghryani et al, 2019) and Italy (58 %) (Papini et al, 2015). Anthelmintics in paste are commercialised in tubes with a maximum dose for horses weighing 500 -700 kg, but Lithuanian draft horses and large and Samogitian breeds exceed this weight.…”