Mom has an obsession with our poop. She picks it all the time and puts it all in a pile, but occasionally she digs through it and fills a container with it.

What I heard was she was collecting “fee-cuhls.” She’s done this before and prior to my joining the family mom even attended a class to learn how fecals are done (Poop, Yes I Said It. POOP). In March she took some from me when the vet was here. Days later she started a disgusting regimen of yucky paste called a “power pack.” She did this to me every morning for FIVE DAYS. She dewormed me with Zimectrin Gold in December but this was worse. It was twice is much yucky and five days of it. She said the vet to her to do it because my poop came back with over 1500 eggs per gram(I guess that’s high?).

According to mom (and the glowing information box), a desired fecal egg count is less than 100. Moderate shedders are 200-500. High shedders are above 500 eggs per gram. I guess I’m what you call a high shedder.

A month after the week of yuck mom dug around my poop again. She also dug around Nahe’s poop and filled a second vial. She spent almost two hours after breakfast waiting for Nahe to empty his pooper. Guess what?

Nahe was negative. I was over 1500. Again.

Mom was frustrated. I guess the Power Pack is expensive and she was frustrated that the vet recommended it and it didn’t work. The lab told mom to give me Quest Plus…that the strongyles are more resistant to fenbendazole (Panacur Power Pac) and should respond better to moxidectin/praziquantel (Quest Plus). So now the week of yuck was all for nothing and I have to swallow MORE YUCK.

Another month goes by. Mom digs around my poop.

She recently heard back and….

NEGATIVE!

Finally mom got all of the parasites in my belly and I feel great!

Mom wanted me to share this with you to underline the importance of fecal tests and follow-up. If she hadn’t checked after the Power-Pack I would still have hundreds of parasite eggs inside of me and I could have gotten very sick.

The follow-up helps demonstrate how resistance can seriously affect a deworming program on a farm. Many horse moms and dads may not realize how important it all is but thankfully mom followed up. I guess it’s worth it for mom to plunder all the poop nuggets.