Friday, January 15th, 2010...7:53 am
A natural remedy for pinworms
A student’s horses were recently treated by a vet for pinworm infestation by treating them for 5 days in a row of an Ivermectin based chemical wormer.
I’m anti toxic chemicals, but even so, I was shocked at that kind of toxic overload for worms that are not harmful to the horse’s health (they don’t migrate through organs or body tissue for their life cycle). They are unpleasant little critturs though, who can cause the horse to itch like crazy, so I decided to post this simple remedy for pin worms.
3 Comments
February 11th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
I have put this comment up for Anne.
Hi Jenny,
I looked at your article on using Neem oil to kill Pin worm eggs and prevent
itching caused by this.I have read that Neem needs to be mixed with a carrier
oil.I have done that mixing it with olive oil and wiping around the tail area
with gauge swabs.I also read to make a spray you need to use an emulsifier so
the neem oil will mix with the water.Just wondering as you said you added the
neem to 500 mls water,did you use an emulsifier as well make the spray?I have
pure neem oil,and would prefer to makeup a spray as it will be easier to
apply.We recently purchased a beautiful TB gelding with a terrible pin worm and
tail rubbing problem.
Love your articles.I am almost through my kinesiology training and am wanting
to work with horses and their owners.
Thanks in advance for feedback on the Neem spray.
February 11th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
And here is my reply:
Hey Anne, thanks for those questions, do you mind if I post that question up
on the comments underneath the article on the website? Because you raised
some good points about the different methods.
Yes you are right, a carrier oil is quite an effective way to get the Neem
oil diluted enough to be effective.
I have mixed the Neem with Coconut oil and made a mix that I have wiped on
with a cloth (and thrown the cloth away afterwards, cos it will probably
have pinworm eggs on it!) I would always use an edible oil – never baby oil
which is a by product of petroleum or any other chemical.
I have also at times put a few drops of woolwash in, that just happened to
be sitting on the bench as I was filling up the spray bottles with extremely
diluted Neem oil – to use as an emulsifier for the Neem oil. And that
worked too.
Recently though, I have just used warm water with a few drops of neem oil or
in colder weather a lump of neem oil in a spray bottle. It occurred to me
a while back, that the detergent as an emulsifier might get in the horse’s
mouths as they mutually groom each other. And I have found that so long as
I don’t shake the bottle up and get the lumps of neem oil into the spray
mechanism (which clogs it up) it sprays fine and the water has quite a
strong smell of neem oil and seems to do the trick.
Thanks for the great question – for people in a colder climate than me, the
carrier oil I think will be a definite advantage! Sppecially one thathas the same “melt in heat” “solid in cold” that neem oil has – like coconut oil.
cheers, jenny
February 11th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
And here is another great idea from Anne:
Thanks for your reply.Yes ,by all means post this question up.
The other thing I had to do was keep a very light summer rug on him,with a large tail flap.This kept a barrier between the horses backside and what he was rubbing on.We have alot of gum trees in our paddocks.Doing this prevented him getting splinters and further infecting rubbed /sore areas,plus provided a barrier so the pin worm eggs didn’t get on every surface he rubbed on.I kept changing the sheet often,always put a clean sheet on when I treated the area. Also washed the rug in wool mix,with neem
added,to kill any eggs.
Jenny: yes, good one!
Leave a Reply