It wasn’t until this recent news cycle that I figured out WHY my standard Ivermectin order was so delayed.
Hmmmm.
I always get the same dozen tubes. Usually it is competitively priced, easy and immediate through Riding Warehouse.
Not this time. I just couldn’t understand it… and then I realized why my standard order was 2 months delayed.
However, the good news is that the two tubes I was able to get at Tractor Supply successfully did the trick in getting rid of Princess Buttercup Pebble’s Lung worms. Doesn’t she look so much better and brighter?! (pic below)
IVERMECTIN DAY!
The horses love and hate worming day. They do it, but only because they get a super special treat afterwards. Today, it was watermelon.
Actually, I think BG likes the taste of wormer. She practically grabs the syringe out of my hand! She has always been that way. She’s a very willing food experimenter. She likes a lot of healthy snacks that the others won’t even try.
*Did you know that non-fruiting mulberry tree leaves are a natural dewormer?
A dozen boxes of Ivermectin arrive… a dozen boxes immediately in the recyle. Yay! I’m glad that’s done!
I was a month late worming (due to the delays with my order) and Gwen’s tail showed the tell-tale signs (she didn’t need her udders cleaned…).
LUNGWORMS.
I wrote about lungworms a while back. You can read that story here.
Donkeys get lungworms. Horses not so much. I had never encountered lungworms with Norma or Mo. However the two newbies came in and they were both sick with one thing or another – having come from the feedlot in Texas.
When the vet came to examine PBP, I thought she had pneumonia. But I was wrong. She had lungworms. Doc gave her a shot of Ivermectin then told me to give her booster Ivermectin paste every two weeks for 2 months.
Well. The Ivermectin aisle looked like the toilet paper aisles of 2019! There were two tubes left of the most expensive kind, of course. So I grabbed them – and I was thrilled to get them! Still, it didn’t occur to me that the shortage was due to Covid. I thought it was the time of year or maybe inflation and gas prices… Anyway, it took 2 months for me to realize that there is no Ivermectin anywhere. I am very happy that my order was in long ago. I do know that Riding Warehouse just got in their supply.
Here is a pic of PBP after her Ivermectin treatments. No more shaggy hair (the first pic is in mid July – it is hot here, everyone is shed out by then) and she now has hardly any lung rattle (she has some scarring). She looks so much brighter!
The pic on the left was mid July, and it was hot. PBP is young and should have been shed out… . After her Ivermectin treatments, she is now shed out with hardly any lung rattle. Lung worms.
We are very close to our goal! We only need $715 to meet our goal for “Donna’s 10”! THANK YOU THANK YOU!
SEPTEMBER BUCKET FUND: In honor of Donna (my mother), Let’s help 10 neglected and starved oldsters! September Bucket Fund: “Donna’s 10!”
click here for story. Click here to donate!
Because of covidiots, in my area feed stores will no longer allow anyone to buy Ivermectin products and notice is posted on entry doors “no ivermectin sales” or “ivermectin not available.” They’re not selling for cattle, and not for horses. One local feed store manager ended up in an assault situation when a non-livestock-owning person demanded it and was refused so now no one will sell it. I use a rotational plan and won’t need ivermectin for a while anyway, and I am also strongly considering alternate parasite control as part of the rotation. I’m actually not fully convinced that this wormer is as effective as good management practices and I base that opinion on looking the results of manure samples! Management of parasites probably easier for me as I have a “closed herd” of only four small-ish horses, plus I’m fortunate to have very large turnout areas with just two horses in each, and double stalls. Actually found over the years that having extra large stalls often encourages horses to utilize one area of the stall for food and another for bathroom purposes (not always, have occasionally in the past had super messy horses completely trash a 16×24 stall!). Another strategy: if there is a dutch door on the stall, hang a hay bag so the horse has to reach over the lower half of the dutch door to pull hay out of the bag, so that the wisps fall outside of the stall itself. That minimizes horses sorting through bedding to clean up the loose bits of hay, which means less exposure to possible parasite-contaminated manure accidentally being ingested. There are some wormers (anthelmintic class) that “test” because they are believed to act to “mask” the presence of illegal drugs so back when I was still showing there were always worries about scheduling deworming around a show schedule – you probably recall that issue from Morgan breed competitions. Bottom line, I’m becoming less of a “better living through chemistry” horseperson and gravitating more toward vigilant environmental management.
Oh yes! It is scarce, and marked up 3x the cost, too. Just like the toilet paper aisles! If you buy it in the store (and they don’t know you), you have to show them a picture of you with your horse before they will sell it to you! I have “a few”, but that’s beside the point… Oy.