Roundworm in foster puppies

TopTec

Am fostering seven 8 week old Collie crosses. Abandoned over Xmas.

Gave them worm tablets on Wednesday am and by tea time they started passing roundworms in their faeces.

I am still finding several piles of faeces today with the worms still present.

My question is - Any idea how long this phase will last? I am having to restrict the puppies away from my other 2 dogs due to the worms.

Thanks

TT

ZiabR

Puppies should be wormed right through their first few months. I think I wormed my dog every 2-3 weeks when she was a pup.

andreac

I would talk to your vet. If they have a large worm burden they might need a special worming routine to kill them off.

Puppies are wormed every month from 8 weeks until 6 months, then every 3 months from then on.

anniehoo

There are varying opinions on worming puppies but the general rule of thumb is to worm every 2 weeks until 12 weeks of age, then every month until 6 months of age then every 6-8 weeks for life if there are children under ten years old in the household or otherwise every 3 months for life. Something gentle like parazole or milbemax and then move on to Drontal as they get older.

Roundworms are the main parasite to worry about when they're very young and not tapeworm.

The reason you start so young is pups can become infected prenatally from the mother up to 3 weeks before they're born with roundworm (Toxocara canis) and postnatally up to 3 weeks after by suckling the milk. It can also take a few treatments to completely rid the infection.

Another issue is to thoroughly clean the environment they defecate in as the eggs that are shed become infective after 4 weeks, so potentially even if you keep your pups and older dogs separated but exercise them in the same environment, your older dogs wont necessarily need to be in direct contact with your pups.

anniehoo

Also, it's good that you're seeing the worms being expelled. It means the wormer is working and they're dead and not still alive inside the puppy shedding eggs.

TopTec

Thanks for the advice. The fostering is only short term.... I hope. I am managing to disinfect their room twice a day and carry the puppies 2 at a time to my wooded area behind for some limited exercise. They only seem to foul the papered area in their room and the back yard. So I can restrict my adult dogs.

I was just surprised at the amount of worms present. I am not a novice by any means but this is by far the worst I have seen.

TT

anniehoo

This is why it's important to start the deworming earlier than 8 weeks as they can quickly get out of control causing intestinal blockage, ulceration and perforation of the wall of the intestine...and death as the end result.

TopTec

anniehoo wrote: »

This is why it's important to start the deworming earlier than 8 weeks as they can quickly get out of control causing intestinal blockage, ulceration and perforation of the wall of the intestine...and death as the end result.

Fine in an ideal world but wormed within 48 hours of being rescued was the best that could be done in this case.

TT

anniehoo

TopTec wrote: »

Fine in an ideal world but wormed within 48 hours of being rescued was the best that could be done in this case.

TT

Oh of course, I wasn't aiming the previous quote at yourself, it was just for general info.

Millem

TopTec wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. The fostering is only short term.... I hope. I am managing to disinfect their room twice a day and carry the puppies 2 at a time to my wooded area behind for some limited exercise. They only seem to foul the papered area in their room and the back yard. So I can restrict my adult dogs.

I was just surprised at the amount of worms present. I am not a novice by any means but this is by far the worst I have seen.

TT

It's been a few years since I fostered pups but I remember the rescue used to give me a liquid wormer called "parazole". The worms came out alive I think. When my own dog was a pup they gave me a tablet but worms came out dead I think. I think the liquid one is gentler. I never seperated my own dogs (they are adults and wormed regularly) from wormy pups I just made sure to pick up poos straight away and did not let me dogs go near poos. Pups didn't sleep with my dogs so if I would just clean up poos in morning and spray down with something like Milton then let my dogs in. I can't remember how many days it's lasted I suppose it depends on infestation. I am going to guess 3. But when you rework you might see some more worms again! Well done on fostering these pups it's probably the first time those pups have ever been wormed and their mum Probably wasn't either sorry I reckon they have loads of worms

boomerang

My friends in the feral cat world are always slagging me because I'm very zealous on worming the cats as best we can. Worm burdens can be very debilitating, even downright dangerous.

The pup I rescued in October was six months old then and so badly infected with roundworms that he was coughing all the time and was anaemic. Massively underweight too, though I'm sure some of that was down to starvation, pure and simple. The vet said he literally had worms from head to tail.

DBB

They are so, so gross.
Worms have no redeeming features. Gross, gross, gross!
I used to foster pups, lots of them. I remember at the time that other fosterers had run into serious problems by worming infested pups too fast: pups with huge worm burdens in their intestines were ending up with a gut full of dead, decaying worms, and a number of pups died:(
As a result, I always used Parazole... it's messy, but it's effective but very gentle, killing the worms over a few days rather than in one glut.
Now, having said that. it's 6 years since I had pups here, it's entirely likely that other products have come on stream that do the job gently too, but Parazole was certainly the wormer of choice for anyone with pups that hadn't been wormed before.

boomerang

Same goes for rescue kittens - we always start with three days Parazole. If they're young kittens and it's a very heavy burden we'll use the Parazole every two weeks repeatedly before moving onto Milbemax. I've seen kittens go into toxic shock same as the foster pups, DBB.

Stronghold or Advocate spot-ons are very gentle wormers I've found, but in my experience of both pups and kittens that have had heavy worm burdens, the spot-ons are not as effective in treating roundworms as Parazole!