The Mystery of the Missing Tail

 

When I took Mercy out to saddle him up for our ride, I noticed the upper part of his tail had some major breakage. This happens when the horse rubs his tail because it is so itchy. He'll scratch on posts, railings, trees, pretty much anything.

Why is his tail so itchy?

One word....parasites.

Twenty years ago, we would deworm our horses monthly. Horses pick up fly eggs and other parasitic eggs when they graze.  They ingest the eggs. The eggs go into the GI tract and hatch into worms or larvae. Then when they poop, the larvae come out to start the cycle all over again. It feels itchy when the larvae come out in the poop. Too many larvae in the gut can make the horse very sick.

But vets no longer recommend monthly deworming. This is because the chemicals used to kill the parasites was causing the parasites to develop immunity. 

So, we had our horses' manure tested by the vet. We gathered a sample of fresh manure, took it to the vet, and the vet looked at it under a microscope. If the tech didn't see a lot of parasites in the manure, we didn't need to regularly deworm.

Because our horses were basically in the same barn, they weren't being exposed to a lot of new and different parasites. So, they didn't need to be dewormed.

But, now we are on the road. Our horses have been in cow pastures, horse pastures, grazing in the forest where deer, elk, and bear poop. They have been exposed to all sorts of new and different parasites. 

So...itchy butt!

Dewormer basically is a paste, about the consistency of toothpaste. Most dewormers have flavorings added, usually to make it taste like apples, so the horses don't spit it out.

You basically squirt a tube into the horse's mouth. The horse swallows the paste. The medicine goes into their GI tract and kills the parasites. Not all of the parasites, but enough to eliminate the itchiness.

We will be deworming monthly from now on.

It is a good idea to use a different dewormer each month. Different brands have different formulas and affect the parasites differently. By rotating the dewormers we can attack different parasites and also reduce the chance that the parasites build up immunity.

Some horses don't like having a tube stuck in their mouth and being force fed a bunch of medicine. To get around that, fill an empty tube with apple sauce and use that instead of medicine. Now the horse sees the tube and thinks - applesauce! yummy! I would give one tube of applesauce on day 1. On day 2 I would give the medicine. On day 3 I would give applesauce. Now the horse thinks odds are in favor of applesauce and he will no longer fight getting the medicine.

So, our horses don't argue about getting dewormed...after all, it might be applesauce. 

Hopefully, Mercy's tail recovers in a few months.