Worming

Thanks to the keen eye of Reed's owner (Lynda) she noticed by my earlier post that our vet was planning to use Panacur as a worming treatment for the puppies. In Lynda's experience this was more likely to cause tummy upsets for the pups as well as requiring 3 times the amount of administration (3 days every 2 weeks) when compared with Drontal puppy (1 day every 2 weeks).  I called up my vet - I've only been with them a short time but I am already very impressed with the level of service and openness from them - to ask them why they use Panacur instead of Drontal and do they ever use Drontal.  Their response was that they use Panacur because they find that most breeders prefer it and also because some people report more tummy problems using Drontal instead of Panacur !

Seems the tummy upsets can certainly not be attributed to one wormer or another (I guess if a real, consistent correlation was observed then one of them would eventually cease to be used). The vet recently had a litter himself and used Drontal puppy and had no problems.

The puppies need to be wormed at 2,4,6 and 8 weeks. For nine puppies on Panacur that would amount to us having to administer 108 doses of wormer !!  On Drontal puppy that would be reduced to just 36. That (and  Lynda's recommendation) was enough to convince me that Drontal was the way to go.  The vets were very kind saying that I could probably source the Drontal on the internet cheaper than they could get it but I was still welcome to pop in and they would show me/supervise the first administration for no charge (no way my previous vets - Braid Vets - would have offered that). Turned out with the vet ordering it for me it would only cost an extra £7 so I am getting them to order it for me ready for the first worming next Tuesday :)