CHANGING TIMES
25 YEARS OF POSTAL WORM EGG COUNTS FOR HORSES
It’s hard to believe that twenty-five years ago, in the late 1990’s, most horse owners had never heard of the concept of worm egg counting to target parasite control. Accepted practice was to dose on a routine schedule. Moxidectin was the new wonder chemical on the block, authorised for use in the UK in January 1999. It remains our most recent worming drug for horses with no more in development at this time. After that parasite control was given little further thought. If only we knew then what we know now we could have saved ourselves a whole heap of heartache!
Sheep farmers were the first to suffer, experiencing reduced growth rates in lambs and rising losses caused by an increasing lack of efficacy of the worming products. The writing was on the wall and the watchword of resistance was out the bag.
It was against this backdrop that the founders of Westgate Labs, David and Gillian Booth began to question the parasite control of their own horses.
“Coming from a science background the evidence-based approach made so much more sense. We set about organising worm egg counts for our own horses. The concept worked brilliantly but results took weeks to return, and the interpretation was non-existent. It piqued my entrepreneurial streak and with decades of lab experience I had a head start! We set out to design a service that would make it as easy as possible for horse owners to adopt testing as the cornerstone of parasite control to slow down resistance and it’s still our mission today.” David commented.
The couple placed their first advert in Horse & Hound in February 1999, and, when horse owners responded, the concept of postal worm egg counts for horses and Westgate Labs was born!
Twenty-five years on and horse parasite control looks very different, in large part down to Westgate Labs’ forward thinking founders and their focus on knowledge sharing and education in the space. Their commitment to customer service still rings true today, being synonymous with best practice parasite control and the tests you can trust to target chemical use.
Yet more is still to be done. Resistance in all five of the worming chemicals licenced for use in UK horses is now well documented – the rising impact of this on horse health and the need to reduce our reliance on wormers is headline news in the equestrian press. Westgate Labs continue to lead in this area by promoting the most up to date research and advice and actively contributing to pan industry campaigns such as CANTER, Controlling ANTiparasitic resistance in Equines Responsibly.
Still at the forefront of change, Westgate Labs has grown to support thousands of horse owners, yard managers, retailers, merchants and vets to implement targeted parasite control programmes and protect their animals from growing resistance problems. Their friendly experts could help you too!