Prevention beats treatment every time. Because almost every lungworm depends on slugs and snails to complete its life cycle, most of prevention comes down to limiting contact with them and keeping up a sensible worming routine. Here’s how to build that into the year.
Step by step
Worm on a vet-guided schedule
Not every routine wormer covers lungworm. Ask your vet for a product or plan that includes lungworm cover, at an interval suited to your area’s risk.
Control slugs and snails around the home
Bring in pet toys, chews and water bowls overnight, when molluscs are most active. Empty and refill outdoor water rather than leaving it to attract them.
Manage outdoor habits
Discourage eating grass, drinking from puddles, and playing with slugs or snails. For cats, reducing hunting lowers exposure to the prey animals that carry the parasite.
Pick up feces promptly
Clearing droppings quickly interrupts the cycle in your own garden, so larvae never reach the local slug and snail population.
For livestock: plan grazing and consider the vaccine
Turn susceptible young stock onto lower-risk pasture, avoid overstocking, and ask your vet about the cattle lungworm vaccine where it’s available. Quarantine and treat new arrivals before mixing them in.
Re-test and review each season
Use faecal testing to target worming rather than blanket-dosing, which helps slow resistance. Review the plan with your vet as seasons and risk change.
Build your prevention kit
From routine wormers to lungworm-active dewormers, VETR can help you keep the right products on hand year-round.
Treating a lungworm infection?
VETR carries veterinarian-trusted dewormers and oral suspensions shipped fast. Match the right product to your animal and parasite.
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