Taking care of your horses is probably the biggest worry that you have as an owner and though it can be very challenging it is very important to insure your animals are healthy all year long. Something that you have to look out for are horse summer sores. Your horses naturally have stomach worms. Though they rarely cause your horse any harm. However, the worm’s larvae can cause problems. Also, if you are looking for a horse property for sale in Colorado, contact Colorado Horse Property today and speak with one of our horse-person realtors.
Horse Summer Sores
Suffice to say, the larvae of these worms are what causes horse summer sores. Vets introduced the deworming agent ivermectin in the early 1980s. However, summer sores were a huge problem before then. Ivermectin, moxidectin and other drugs in their class are highly effective against the stomach worms. Don’t let this make you complacent about checking your animals for worms however. Though numbers of larvae reduced, the worms are not completely wiped out.
If you discover that your horse has summer sores, don’t hesitate to get them to your local large animal veterinarian. Most likely your horse will be prescribed topical or systemic glucocorticoids, which are powerful anti-inflammatory drugs. Treat your horse systemically with ivermectin or moxidectin to kill the parasites. This removes the adult worms from the stomach. But you are not out of the woods yet. Summer sores are a fly magnet, and flies will irritate the lesion and perhaps deposit more worm larvae. Reducing the places flies can breed, as in around manure, wet feed, or other wet organic material, is the best way to decrease the chance of this happening.
