Alternate grazing of horses and sheep as control for gastro-intestinal helminthiasis in horses.

Gastro-intestinal helminth infections of a group of three yearling mare Shetland ponies, which were set-stocked on a small pasture from February until September, were compared with those of a similar group of ponies, which grazed a similar pasture from February to July and subsequently was removed to a pasture which had been grazed by sheep from April to July. In addition both groups were treated with cambendazole when the latter group was removed to the sheep pasture. Pasture larval counts and worm counts demonstrated that the group grazed after the sheep acquired considerably smaller burdens of nematodes of the subfamilies Cyathostominae and Strongylinae, but considerably higher burdens of Trichostrongylus axei than the group which remained on the same pasture. The T. axei infections in the former group caused an increase in the serum pepsinogen levels within two weeks after removal to the sheep pasture followed by a gradual decrease. At necropsy T. axei populations consisted almost exclusively of inhibited early third stage larvae.