Red alert!
WHEN HAYLEY MARSH’S young horse came out of the winter looking a bit poor, the veterinary physiotherapist’s initial thought was that he was going through a growth spurt and would pick up in the spring. But this didn’t happen, and within two weeks he had lost even more weight.
The vet was called, who suggested that Hayley worm the youngster, “just in case”.
Having bred the horse, Hayley knew his worming history and had always followed a regular routine, worming only when his egg counts were high.
After being wormed for roundworm, the young horse colicked and the vet had to return. Bloods showed he had exceptionally high levels of antibodies.
“They thought he had lymphoma (cancer) because his levels were so high,” says Hayley. “What also came back from the tests was that he’d had a roundworm and tapeworm burden at some point in the last six months, but the vets believed that his antibodies were too high for this to be a simple case of a worm burden.”
To treat the tapeworm, Hayley wormed her horse again, and the following worm egg count showed that he was clear of worms. Over the next few weeks, he slowly started to improve.
“All the other blood tests came back negative, so it was clearly
