New Research Project: Is a stressed horse more likely to have a high worm egg count?
- Emma Atkin
- Mar 23, 2017
- 2 min read
With any disease, it is important to identify risk factors for increased infection. In the field of horse parasite control, there are still a lot of gaps in our knowledge.
High levels of stress in many species, including humans, is known to cause dysfunction to the immune system and can render an individual more susceptible to disease.
Horses are exposed to many sources of stress as a result of human intervention. Some of these include:
Exercise Intensity & Frequency
Transportation
Change of environment and herds
Vet, Farrier, Dentist Visits
Social isolation
Previous medical conditions can also cause a stress response in the horse’s body as it tries to maintain preferable conditions.
We are running a research project that will investigate whether or not individuals that are exposed to increased stress shed more parasite eggs in their dung. This will help further expand our knowledge of susceptibility to parasitic infection and aims to assist future studies that develop decision support systems for selecting individuals for treatment with a wormer.
What does this project entail?
All customers that present their horse’s sample for routine worm egg counting between April and September 2017 will be invited to complete the study questionnaire which contains a number of section on previous worm control, grazing management, feeding, exercise, transportation and medical history. The final section contains 5 common scenarios that you will have faced with your horse. We would like you to rate how ‘stressed’ your horse gets in these situations.
We will then tally the results of the questionnaire along with the most recent routine worm egg count result.
All information will be anonymised during the study and you retain the right to withdraw from the study at any point. Should any significant findings be made, we hope to publish them in a peer-reviewed academic journal.
Find out more info here
Get involved!
Anyone who presents their horse for routine worm egg counting and completes the study questionnaire will receive a voucher entitling them to their horse’s next routine worm egg count for just £5, as a thank-you!
If you’ve recently had a routine worm egg count carried out with us for your horse and would like to fill in the questionnaire, you can access an online version here. Alternatively, if you’re a yard manager or owner with a large number of horses, please get in touch as we can provide you with the questionnaire in an alternative format for ease of completion.
You can complete the questionnaire online here
For more information, please contact Chloe at the below email address.
Lead Investigator: Chloe Dix
This project is being completed by Chloe for her MSc by Research at the University of Gloucestershire, UK.
Email: s1202615@connect.glos.ac.uk
Comments