Advice on medication in feed - put into stud muffins or?

[shadesofbay3]

hi all -

i have a mare that is becoming pickier with age, cushings, etc.

i am not able to be there every AM/PM feeding, and my busy boarding barn, as wonderful as they are, cannot monitor every second of every meal.

my mare will sometimes, more frequently now, leave behind pills in her meal. i am less worried about her supplements, but she takes allergy pills in both the morning and evening and also takes an equioxx for arthritis in the evening.

whenever i am there for feeding time and she leaves a pill or a few, i pop them in one of the studmuffins, and she never turns them down. all her supplements and pills are pre-packed, so i’m thinking maybe i should just start pre-stuffing her stud muffins in the pills that way i know she will eat them

i only have two concerns

1. will the pills go bad? i pre-pack supplements for 10 days in advance and don’t know if it would do anything to the formulation of a pill being in a muffin for 1-10 days
2. i know she may “discover” me and stop eating the muffins… i would continue to feed them to her without medication so to throw her off, but i don’t want to lose the ability to give meds to her in the muffins

so the question becomes… is it better for her to skip some pills or take a chance with the pills in the stud muffins?

[Renn_aissance]

I don’t know about Previcox and allergy pills, but you mentioned Cushings. I asked Boehringer Ingleheim about pre-loading Fig Newtons with Prascend tablets. They advised not to do this. That pill is sensitive to environmental factors and may degrade. You might email BI about doing this with Equioxx. They got back to me in a business day.

If you pre-pack several baggies with a bit of muffin and a sealed pill, would your barn be amenable to adding the pills to the muffin immediately before feeding time?

For what it’s worth, and I hope I don’t jinx myself saying this, my fellow has yet to decline his Fig Pillton.

[PaddockWood]

Those Prascend pills are in a foil for a reason. Need to be popped out just before serving.

My old guy has gotten picky so I put his pill in a tiny handful of shredded carrots and watch him take it down.

I keep 4-5 days of the minced carrots in a small plastic container and just get what I need each morning.

Is that an idea that might work?

[shadesofbay3]

Yeah I know that about the Prascend so they take that out of the foil each morning for me to give to her… I just would hate to have them do that each morning and each evening with her other pills. i guess it wouldn’t be that big of a deal for just 1 Equioxx but she gets 10 allergy pills in the AM and 10 in the PM so that’s a lot of stuffing!

Fig Newtons might be easier tho! Just the regular kind are okay for them?

[Calvincrowe]

I “preload” my human pill container with allergy meds, heart meds, etc, so I’m guessing your mare’s other meds should be just fine packed into a stud muffin and baggied up ahead of time. Prascend is a No as you already know.

[rubygirl1968]

What do you do if you’re giving half a tablet of Prascend? Is the half left out not effective?

My gelding was just diagnosed and vet put him on half a tablet once a day.

[luvmyhackney]

Mine is on half a tablet. Vet advised to just fold up in the foil and keep away from sunlight. When I emailed they said 24 hours wrapped in the foil and out of sunlight wouldn’t reduce the effectiveness that much.

[iJump]

I would do the arthritis pills in a treat, and maybe apple sauce for the other ones?

[rubygirl1968]

Thanks! I’ll start doing that. I had no idea it was an issue.

[Renn_aissance]

I feed regular Fig Newtons! My barn took it upon themselves to break them in half so he has a morning half cookie and an evening half cookie. I love my barn.

I sympathize on the allergy pills. 10 pills are a pain. We go through a lot of Zyrtec around here.

[blob99]

Will your barn feed soaked beet pulp? I’ve found that this has been the best way for me to get pills into my horses. They’re less likely to ‘fall to the bottom’ in drier feed and horses tend to lick up the very last drop.

[fordtraktor]

BO here – it’s perfectly reasonable to ask that the pills be added when fed by staff. I’m usually pretty strict about annoying supplements (I make everyone use Smartpaks, etc.) but medication is a different game and should be fed in a manner that makes it most effective. It’s no problem for me to load a stud muffin or other pill pocket, takes 10 seconds and the Prascend pills are super easy to open.

[cayuse]

Same here, one pony on 1/4 tab and the other on 1/2. I just put the unused part back in the pack and into the closet.

[myhorsefaith]

Not sure if it would work for all pills, especially those that are sensitive to environment when opened, but a friend taught me a little hack (this really depends on the size of the pill and # of them given), but for the case of masking a smaller pill and even protecting it some- putting it in a veggie capsule then putting that into the treat/feed… i wouldnt mess with prascend pills but could be an option for others.

On the subject of treats- beetibites are amazing - pre drilled holes and super soft- they dont fall apart. Fig newtons are used in our barn because they are cheap and the horses like them, but my one gelding does not…he will take the beetibite no problem. Of course they are expensive…

[demidq]

In the past, I crushed/ground pills and added them to a handful of sweet feed. I bagged for each feed, staff just opened and dumped. Of course you can’t do this with Prascend.
Be grateful- my horse now has to have all her meds syringed. The Prascend must taste terrible

[george]

I used 1/4 of a nice soft date for the prasend for my retired gelding. The barn placed his 1/4 or 1/2 pill depending on the feeding into it twice a day. When I asked my vet the same question about all the other pills she suggested placing supplants in one baggie and medications stored and sorted into daily doses in a separate baggie from the supplements/feed.