News Notes

‘Buy Less Dewormer’ Important Message for Owners

Zoetis launched the campaign this spring to educate owners about the AAEP updated deworming guidelines (https://aaep.org/resource/internal-parasite-control-guidelines/).

The AAEP now discourages fixed-interval, year-round deworming and rotating dewormers. Their revised recommendations state that most adult horses should be dewormed twice a year at most. They also ask horse owners to work with their veterinarians to conduct fecal egg count tests to identify high-shedding horses, which would require additional targeted deworming treatments.

“The industry has seen increasing resistance levels to several parasite treatments, which can be caused, in part, by deworming too often and with active ingredients that do not target the right parasites at the right time,” said Nathan Voris, DVM, MBA, the director of Equine Technical Services at Zoetis U.S. “Our aim with the ‘Buy Less Dewormer’ campaign is to raise awareness around best practices focused on less frequent deworming, and to get horse owners and equine practitioners to re-evaluate their current protocols, which for many, are set on autopilot.” MeV