Dewormer & weight gaining supplements?

Ok I got a new mare and she is a little on the skinny side. So I would like yalls opinion on the best dewormers and weight gaining supplements for your money. I bought some Quest dewormer today just cause I needed it. So whats yalls opinions on Quest? And I haave never had to buy a weight supplement as all my horses have been fatties. Lol. So Idk where to start on those.

I can't say much about wormers, I've been use safeguard though because my mare was lactating/pregnant. I know a lot of people really don't like Quest, but I am not sure why.

As far as weightbuilding supplements, I had an underweight mare I got in July I started her with regular old Farnam's Weightbuilder, and then about December I switched her over to Omegatin, which I have seen GREAT results with, BTW, very happy with it. She was in the good by fall anyways, and now she has a nice shiny coat and rock hard hooves to boot.

I like Quest, but if you do not know the deworming history on the horse, I would not use it first. I would first deworm with Pyrantle Promate, a double dose. Then use Quest in 4-6 weks. After that, use a fecal egg count to see what kind of deworming you need to do.

As for weight gainers, I like to give free choice grass hay, the best quality I can find. For "feed" I like to give Alfalfa pellets (1-2 scoops using a 3qt feed scoop) and some sort of fat supplement, like milled flax (1 cup) or rice bran oil (1 cup), along with a vitamin supplement.

If this mare is brand new to you; I would put her on an agressive deworming schedule and feed her good groceries for a couple of months before adding a weight gain supplement. Throwing too much at her too fast can result in 1.) founder and 2.) burning extra calories as energy - making her "hot".

Most vet clinics web sites will have a deworming schedule posted that's appropiate for your area. Our recommended schedule is ivermectin 5X a year and a double dose of Quest in the fall. I *believe* that's because ivermectin is the best broad spectrum wormer, but there is one species (small strongles) that Quest does a better job on - the recommendation for the fall is because that's when that parasite is in it's encysted stage. But that's just my area in the US, check the recommendation for yours. Every 6 - 8 weeks is the norm here, I consider every 4 weeks to be an agressive schedule.

I do a "panacur Purge" on new horses...5 straight days on Panacur (or SafeGuard) This gets all the buggies and eggs, breaking the life cycle. <Check with your vet to see what they reccommend>
Usually, this will aid a LOT in getting weight on. I agree, do this first, then wait a bit before adding supplements! A normal diet (I use half oat and half alfalfa) will put weight on safer than the gaining supplements, and is way more cost effective. Add a 'snack' in between the two main meals, a flake of hay or alfalfa/oat pellets, and that new pone will be up to ideal weight in no time!

Oh, as a side note on your mare, make sure to have her teeth checked straight away too. I had my mare floated three days after she got here - likely the main reason she got so underweight in the first place was her teeth being so bad.

Good Point, Indy! A big ol' Homer Simpson D'oh! On that one.

I have been thinking that she might need her teeth done. I'll have a look at them, but I'll have to wait till my next paycheck.lol. My dad has this HUGE (like maybe 1000 or more lbs) thing of an allstock feed. Would that help add weight on her?

I have found that grain products have to be fed at higher rates to put weight on. IME, Alfalfa pellets and a fat source, like flax or oil, work better to put weight on, and you don't have to feed a ton of it.

The MOST important thing to feed her is LOTS of high quality grass hay or timothy hay (or mixed hay). Start with that first, for a few days, then start slowly feeding her alfalfa pellets and fat, working your way up to 2 scoops of AP (using a 3qt feed scoop) and 1 cup of oil or flax. Add in a vitamin supplement and some probiotics after a week. Once she's up to a good weight, you can quit the probiotics and extra fat.

I have dealt with quite a few "skinny" horses and "hard keepers" and this has been, by FAR, the best way to get them up to weight safely, without making them hyper or changing the personality of the horse.

Never overdose with Quest, especially on a thin horse of unknown health. You can cause impaction colic from a huge parasite die-off. Also, fenbendazole and oxibendazole dewormers are not effective, at all. The "power pack" 5-day treatment with them can cause stomach upset and negatively effect the beneficial bacteria in the gut, and it doesn't work any better than a single dose of Ivermectin. I would not recommend it.

The safest deworming for a horse of unknown deworming history is a double dose of Pyrantle Promate followed by Ivermectin in 4 weeks. That will clear out the majority of parasites without much risk of colic.

Quest may not be the best choice for this horse as an initial dewormer more because you say she is underweight rather than due to risk of impaction. In an adult horse, the risk of impaction colic from deworming isn't nearly as high as most people think. Impaction colic from deworming is more of a risk in horses under a year of age because they are likely to have a heavier parasite load due to being susceptible to ascarids which are LARGE worms.

As for a double dose of pyrantel being less likely to cause an impaction colic than Quest, that's not really true either. You are going to be killing more than 90% of the adult parasites in the GI tract with either pyrantel or moxidectin so the risk of impaction is the same.

I would recommend a fecal egg count if you know that this horse hasn't been dewormed in 3-4 months. Here in Texas we are in our high reinfection season so this is a good time to determine what kind of parasite load this horse normally carries so that you can plan a deworming program that is appropriate. And please don't go by all the old deworming plans that are posted online. Most of them are following the same old out-dated plan of rotating dewormers and deworming every 6-8 weeks---NOT a good plan at all.

Find out when this horse was last dewormed and with what. If it's been 3 months since she was dosed with ivermectin, do an FEC now if the last deworming was with Quest then you need to do the FEC 4 months later. If it was anything other than those and it's been more than 2 months then go ahead with an FEC. Then if your results are under 200 eggs per gram, you should only need to deworm this horse twice a year---spring and fall. If it's over 200 but under 500 eggs per gram, then you are going to want to deworm 3 times a year--spring, fall and once in the winter. If it's over 500 then you want to deworm 4 times a year--spring, fall and twice during the winter. In Texas, the summer weather serves to control parasite reinfection rates for adult horses so you don't need to deworm then.

For weight gain, rather than supplements just go with a good quality forage fed free choice. And definitely get her teeth checked.

(And Luvs2Ride is exactly right IndyHorse, if you have been using fenbendazole in an adult horse you have likely NOT been effectively treating parasites. Ivermectin and moxidectin can both be used in pregnant mares and at least one of them should be used to control parasites.)