Understanding Your WormScope Results

EPG stands for eggs per gram. It's the number of parasite eggs we count in every gram of your horse's manure under the microscope.

Adult worms living inside a horse shed eggs into the gut, and those eggs pass out in the manure. Counting them gives us a reliable snapshot of how many egg-laying adult worms that horse is currently carrying — and how much they're contaminating the paddock.

A higher EPG generally reflects a bigger egg-laying burden, and a lower EPG usually means the horse is coping well — but the number on its own never tells the whole story.

The same EPG can mean very different things depending on the horse in front of you. An egg count is a data point, not a verdict.

Results should always be interpreted alongside the horse's age, season, general health and management — worming history, body condition, paddock rotation, stocking density, whether manure is picked up, and the time of year all shift what a number actually means.

A young horse, an older horse, and a fit adult with the same EPG can each need a completely different response. WormScope reports include an individual recommendation based on the full situation — never a rigid cut-off applied blindly to every horse.

Horses tend to fall into one of three consistent egg-shedding patterns:

• Low shedders — carry few egg-laying adult worms and consistently return low counts. Most horses sit here.
• Moderate shedders — sit in the middle and can shift with season, stress and management.
• High shedders — a smaller group of horses that repeatedly return higher counts and produce most of the paddock contamination.

Identifying which horses fall into which group is one of the most useful things testing can do for a herd.

Shedding pattern is largely down to the individual horse's own immune response to parasites, and it's remarkably consistent from year to year. Genetics, age and underlying health all play a role.

It's not usually a sign of poor care — a well-managed horse can still be a natural high shedder. What matters is recognising it, so treatment and monitoring can be focused where it's actually needed instead of applied blanket-style across the herd.

A single egg count is a snapshot. Regular testing turns those snapshots into a trend, so you can see how each horse's burden is changing over the seasons.

Ongoing testing helps confirm that treatments are actually working, catches rising burdens early, and gives you objective data to guide worming decisions — instead of guessing on a calendar. It's the backbone of responsible, sustainable parasite management and helps slow the development of resistance on your property.

A standard faecal egg count is excellent at detecting and quantifying strongyle-type eggs, but it does not reliably detect:

• Tapeworms — shed eggs intermittently and in packets that don't float reliably in a standard test.
• Bots — the larvae live attached to the stomach lining and don't produce eggs in the manure.
• Encysted small strongyles — larvae walled off in the gut wall don't lay eggs, so they're invisible to a routine FEC.

These parasites need to be managed on the basis of season, history and risk rather than a single test result. Your WormScope report factors them in when we make recommendations.

While preparing your sample, we also check for sand in the manure. Horses grazing on sandy paddocks, bare yards or short pasture can ingest small amounts of sand with every mouthful, and it accumulates in the gut over time.

A significant sand load can cause weight loss, diarrhoea, recurrent colic and — in severe cases — a serious impaction. Because it builds up silently, most owners don't know it's there until symptoms appear.

If we detect notable sand in your sample, we'll flag it on the report along with practical steps to reduce further intake and clear what's already there.