For the cats and dogs the problem is they have access to field mice and fleas, both carry tapeworm larvae. We routinely de-flea the little furry critters with Frontline and Revolution, but despite our best efforts the parasites will eventually come, and they have. Fortunately, it doesn't require a vet exam but we do have to purchase the medication from the vet's office, and administer ourselves. The joy of shoving a pill down a dog or cat's throat is difficult to describe, even more exciting is the occasional gagging and regurgitating of the pill onto the floor in front of you. Oh sure, you can hide it in a treat, and when you sit down on the couch and feel that wet little lump sitting there next to you and realize it's a partially dissolved pill that you attempted to hide in a treat, just know that the dog left it there intentionally to make a point. Ah yes, the guilty puppy face and indignant scampering away can easily be translated into a barrage of curse words--for the love of our animals.
For bigger animals, like our cows and horses, we have to deal with both worms and flies. It's even more of a problem this time of year as spring seems to be the time for all things to flourish. For years the common practice has been to constantly bombard parasites with a continuous flood of de-wormers in a rotation schedule targeting by effectiveness of types of worms for the season, but fear of parasites developing resistance to these treatment methods has caused professionals to revamp their recommendations. Now it's a more thoughtful approach of assessing the problem, then focus your treatment. We're adopting this more conservative approach and looking at it as an overall management strategy, where we're utilizing our powers of observation and all of our resources, including the chickens, to keep pests at bay. It all relates to pasture management, the healthier your pasture the healthier your animals. But even if we do a great job managing our pastures, rotating the animals and using our chickens to clean after, we still have to contend with the fact we live in a valley with lots of other animals, and pests and parasites migrate easily between pastures. It's just a fact of life.
That's why I keep an eye on the cows to see how they're doing and recently noticed the horn flies were starting to accumulate on Becky's back, Ron and Patty had some as well. So to keep our cows happy I opted to treat them for both flies and worms since I'm sure a fecal exam would suggest it's a good time to pour-on the parasiticide. This morning while feeding them some grain I took advantage of their focus on food as a distraction while I squeezed between them to pour-on their de-wormer and fly control. Last night Victoria administered the de-wormer paste to the horses, and thankfully they handled it well. I'm imagining the paste or gel used doesn't always taste that great, although, we did choose the brand that smelled like apples and was supposed to be apple flavored.
I'll probably smell like cow when I show up to work today, but that's just my work-life balance routine.
References:
Preventing and Treating Parasites in Your Horse (pdf), Oregon State University Extension Service
Equine Recommended De-worming Schedule (pdf), Colorado State University
Managing Internal Parasites of Cattle (pdf), Oregon State University Extension Service
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