peachpie
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home fecal egg count kits - want recommendationDo any of you do counts yourself? I've been googling and found one kit that you send back in for analysis (around $20.00). The few companies I found either don't ship to PO boxes or charge around $40 to ship in some rapid manner which negates this cost-saving idea. Jeepers creepers.
Doing it yourself for a single horse sounds very easy - just need a few supplies and a used 100 power microscope.
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peachpie
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LOL, I'm replying to my own post. Valley Vet has a neat deal, but not for me. You send for a little kit, put on a dab of poop, mail it in and get an emailed analysis all for around $19.00. So I called. The mailing charge? $16.00. What, I said? Oh anything up to five pounds costs you $16.00. I asked what it weighs and it weighs 1/10 th of one pound! No way around it - no USPS free mailing box use or nice person popping it into a mailing envelope or a buck or two. I talked it over, using reason, and was told that lots of people in Alaska and Hawaii pay this willingly. Well, I said, I will no longer do business with Valley Vet because it just doesn't stand to reason. Fooey and double fooey.
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LaPrincipessa
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A group of us here went in on a microscope and the supplies to do our own fecals. The local vets charge $10-$20. While that's not too bad for my one horse, the others have mutiple equids so it's more cost effective.
We bought our microscope and supplies from Countryside Naturals - at least I think that's the name of the place. I'll dig around and see if I can find the website address. The charts they provide aren't so hot.
Chalex - I think you can google it - has a nice kit for around $50. I've thought about getting a new kit to do more precise counts.
I'm not too worried about specific egg identification. I'm trying to maintain Cricket on a natural deworming program and that is not parasite-class specific.
A simple flotation test - fecal egg count - won't tell you much. It's important to perform what they call a Fecal Egg Count Reduction Test (FECRT). You perform a fecal count before deworming and then two weeks afterwards. Comparing the numbers you can get an idea if whatever dewormer you used was effective or not.
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peachpie
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Thanks. So how do you perform the test you mention (had four letters in the test name)? I'd sure like to find out more about this. I have not priced tests by a vet in Alaska, but I bet the price would knock your socks off, lol.
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LaPrincipessa
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A FECRT (Fecal Egg Count Reduction Test) is just performing two flotation tests and then comparing them. The kit we bought included directions on how to do a flotation test. The only problem is the charts aren't very clear. We're searching for better pictures. It's pretty easy to identify the strongyle eggs and that seems to be most prevelant.
While the up front cost is high, it pays off in the long run. Here (N. Alabama/S. Tennessee) it's about $13-$18 per flotation test. So for one deworming cylce, to test before and after, you're out $26 - $36. Plus the hassle of getting the sample to the vet. It might not be as accurate as a vet-performed fecal test but at least we have an idea of how our horses are at any given time. It also helps you see what dewormers are effective. Some horses are more sensitive to certain dewormers and some dewormers have no effect on a particular horse. I'm weeding out non-effective natural dewormers based on Cricket's test results.
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peachpie
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I've thought it over and although I could learn, and would enjoy this sort of thing, I do not have the knowledge and judgement of a vet to know what is an acceptable load after worming (assuming it is never zero). Etc. And so, I'm giving up the do-it-myself idea in favor of talking to the vet about all of this and just paying for her expertise. Many thanks for sharing your experience.
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