Let’s talk worms again. In the fall, it is after the first hard frost and the full moon. The frost kills off the common bot eggs which can hang out on horses in particular.
This is going to get crazy if you haven’t read my posts about deworming livestock and people.
When we were little, we were on our farm everyday doing what kids do: digging in the dirt , gathering eggs, playing in the forest, making mud pies, stepping in cow poop, eating berries from the ditches, letting the cow lick our face, picking up our favorite chicken, sharing toast with the dog ….you know beautiful things. But also sometimes very gross things. We were dewormed every year.We were given pills that eliminated pinworms, roundworms and threadworms based on our weight. There is also a more natural option.
We were never checked for worms, because holy mother of God, why would you traumatize a child by checking between their butt checks with some scotch tape and a flashlight in the middle of the night???
And good mother I am, I hard passed on doing that to my kids too. I just gave them (and all the adults in the house !) over the counter dewormer available at the drugstore every fall usually when I noticed the signs, just like my mother and grandmother did : night terrors, broken sleep, endless eating without getting full, butt itching, excessive nose picking, dark circles under their eyes, tired and listless. There are loads of symptoms but these are the ones that usually presented for us. Then we washed all the sheets, pajamas and all that jazz. Daycare was also a breeding ground for worms with all those cute grubby hands.
The eggs pass into the digestive system and hatch in the small intestine. From the small intestine, larvae go to the large intestine, where they live as parasites.
About 1 to 2 months later, worms leave the large intestine through the anus. They lay eggs on the skin right around the anus, which triggers itching in that area. Often, this happens at night.
When someone scratches the itchy area, microscopic eggs transfer to their fingers. Contaminated fingers can then carry pinworm eggs to the mouth, where they go back into the body, or stay on various surfaces, where they can live for 2 to 3 weeks.
We are all grossed out by this, of course, farm people and all. But the alternative is to not to talk about it which means people are walking around not feeling their absolute best. Which is much more crazy.
Love Jenn xx
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