Pinworms (Oxyuris equi) are roundworms that live in a horse’s large intestine. Although these parasites don’t have much impact in a horse’s health, they can be very irritating causing itchiness around its tail and anal region.

The adult worms have a white-grey colour and the males are quite smaller than the females. The male worms usually exist in low numbers and are less than 1 cm long. The females however, can grow up to about 15 cm in length.

In order to lay their eggs females will migrate from the large intestine to the horse’s anus where they partially emerge from the sphincter to lay their sticky eggs on the skin around the anus (outside the horse’s body). The eggs are deposited in an easily recognisable yellow, white or green sticky fluid. These will hatch and become infective in three to five days. Then they will drop and end up contaminating the horse’s environment, being able to survive for several months unhatched.

Horses become infected when they ingest the eggs found on pasture (from faeces), contaminated drinking water, feed or surrounding environment. Once they are ingested by the horse, the eggs hatch releasing larvae into the small intestines. They will then migrate to the large intestine and develop into an adult pinworm. Their entire lifecycle takes about 4 to 5 months.

Affected horses are often itchy, trying to rub their tail, bite and lick their hind quarters, which leads to the appearance of bald patches in these areas.

Although pinworm eggs will not appear in routine faecal worm egg counts, the diagnosis can be made either visually when the sticky fluid is deposited or your vet can perform an adhesive test. The eggs will be visible if a transparent piece of adhesive tape is applied over the anus and then examined under the microscope.

To keep these parasites away from your horse please make sure you keep up with your routine worming plan. Avoid using grooming equipment on more than one horse to keep the parasite from spreading from one horse to another.

If you notice your horse is more itchy than usual in its rear end or if you are able to identify the parasite, clean your horse’s perineal area every three days to remove any eggs that may have been laid there. The best way to clean the horse perianal region is to use disposable materials, such as Baby wipes, which can then be carefully disposed of. This will not only prevent the worms from contaminating the environment and stop them from continuing their normal development but this will also relieve the horse from the itchiness and irritation.

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Horses, just like humans, can have heart murmurs. Murmurs can be detected by your vet while he or she examines your horse and listens to its heart with a stethoscope. They are basically abnormal sounds of high velocity or turbulent blood flow that originated from the heart valves or related structures.

Although the idea of a horse having a murmur can be scary for a horse owner, heart murmurs are relatively common findings on horse’s examinations and many healthy horses have murmurs.<

Most of these murmurs are not due to any structural abnormality and often the horse or the pony does not show any signs of heart disease. However, some murmurs indicate more serious problems in a horse’s blood flow and/or heart function. These abnormalities include inadequate functioning of heart valves, large blood vessels or an abnormal connection between different heart chambers.

Common clinical signs of heart disease include a reduced tolerance to exercise, thickening of the limbs and lower neck or chest and enlargement of blood vessels, causing a pulse in their jugular vein that is visible when you look at their neck (‘jugular pulse’).

Most horses are not affected in terms of athletic performance by the fact that they have a heart murmur and studies on the matter have failed to find any evidence that horses with murmurs performed any differently from those without murmurs. If the murmur is due to an abnormality and if this issue progresses, then a horse’s performance can deteriorate as time goes by.<

Sometimes a heart murmur can appear following certain medical conditions. Colic leads to unusual blood flow patterns for example and viral infections can cause changes to the cardiac muscles. In such cases the murmur is temporary.

If your horse has a heart murmur it might be necessary to investigate it further as it could mean your horse has a heart condition and its progression can have an impact in your horse’s performance and general health.

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