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I am not a veterinarian, but I do read a great deal. This is going to
sound really bassackwards, but recent studies done on humans show that being
parasite free isn't always the very best thing, if you are an immune system.
In humans, at least, studies have indicated that, sometimes, if the immune
system has nothing to fight it will INVENT something to fight..from which we
get such seemingly irrational auto- immune diseases, the most common one
found in this case being asthma.
I have no idea if it's the same in horses. I would be surprised if it
WASN'T. Does this mean we need to ADD parasites? No, no!!! The idea is to
keep them under control so that the immune system can keep them within
tolerable limits. Foals go through a period when the immunity granted by the
mother's colustrum wears off and their system is just gearing up. An immunity
system needs to "learn" how to handle the assaults visited on it, just as any
army needs to train to fight the enemies. Keeping a foal totally parasite
free is probably impossible, but if it's immunity system doesn't "learn" who
to fight and how, the system may, as in humans, just go and find SOMEONE to
fight, by golly, and if it fools itself into thinking something in it's own
body is the enemy,then the foal is going to have problems.
I have to believe that daily wormers are serving to build up the worm's
immunities to the poisons we attack them with. In most cases of -cides of
any sort, be they pesticides, herbicides, the 'cide of choice is not going to
have a 100% kill rate. I believe the highest one can hope for is 90%. That
means 10% of the population of worms you are seeking to kill are going to
survive, and pass on that survival benefit to the next generation of
worms..which will sneer at the same stuff, day after day after day. In my
humble opinion, using daily wormers is just a way of breeding for
super-resistant worms.
Michelle
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