Follow This Deworming Schedule to Gain the Best Parasite Protection for Your Horse

Tapeworms, bots, flies, roundworms, and many other parasites love to make their home in your horse's digestive tract. Generally a horse can handle a few parasites, but when they become too concentrated in the horse's digestive tract, they can wreck havoc and cause devastating effects to your horse's overall health and well-being.

There are many different equine deworming medications on the market today, all offering to be the best. The simple truth is that many of them contain the same active ingredient and are manufactured under different names. Price and appearance are often the only differences between deworming medications that contain the same active ingredient.

There are four main equine deworming medications: ivermectin, moxidectin, fenbendazole and pyrantal pamoate. They all have different uses and when combined together provide complete parasite protection for your horse. The worming schedule you follow does depend slightly upon the type of horse and their use, but most pasture kept horses can follow this simple deworming rotation.

The pasture kept horse should be dewormed every 6-8 weeks. The most effective deworming rotation you can follow for your horse is this: fenbendazole in the deep of winter, ivermectin or moxidectin in the early spring, pyrantal pamoate in summer, fenbendazole in late summer, ivermectin or moxidectin in the first freeze, and another pyrantal pamoate in the early winter.

Depending on how often you wish to administer the deworming medication, you may need to add another 1-2 doses throughout the year. The most important part of the schedule is that you administer the pyrantal pamoate at the beginning of the grazing season, and again at the end of the grazing season. Try to split these two doses 6 months apart for optimum coverage. April and October are two great months to administer a pyrantal pamoate deworming medication.