If you board, does your barn offer to medicate outside boarded horses? If so, what is the charge?
I have two horses who get daily pills that are on group outside board. I currently do not charge, but it IS a time consuming PITA, and I feel I should be charging, but not sure what.
When I managed a barn, the outside horses were fed twice a day, so any meds/supplements the horse would eat in their feed were given at no additional charge.
If your outside horses are not fed… or are not fed on a schedule that works for the pills… or have to be dosed… yes, absolutely, you should be charging. How long does it take you to stop what you’re doing, walk to wherever the pills are, hike out to field board, catch the right horse, medicate, hike back, and resume what you were doing? Multiply by what your time is worth. (Or if you try not to value your own time for sanity reasons, use the hourly rate you would have to pay to hire competent, reliable staff. 
)
If the horses are already getting fed at buckets once or more per day, and it is reasonably possibly to control that the correct horse eats the correct feed with meds, I probably wouldn’t charge.
If they weren’t getting fed grain outside, or it required me separating the horse(s) in a way I wouldn’t normally be doing so with regular feeding, or having to catch and bring inside and wait for them to eat and put back out or bring inside to orally dose, etc., then yeah, I’d absolutely charge. $5-15 per dose depending on the work required.
How do you grain in a group setting without fighting or getting trampled? I tried feeding pellets to one paddock, but it was causing too much drama. It is not normal in my area to grain field horses - our hay is pretty good.
I don’t think i would feel comfortable putting a pill in feed in a group setting just in case the pill was dropped or someone else ate it.
I use nosebags.
In your situation, I would definitely charge to medicate. Can you require the owner to buy pill pockets to make it easy for you? Then it’ll just take seconds.
I did this for a bit - it was fairly easy as it was just sticking a pill in a stud muffin and going out and giving it to the horse, so I only charged $1 per day. Even $1.50 would’ve probably been fine, an extra $45 a month for your horse to get medicated makes sense to me.
each horse has its own feed bag
We have two that are pastured together, Mr Pig would eat everything if he could as Ms Mare is one would just backaway…so when they are together they are fed (if anything) using feed bags
I Agree with your concept of charging something as giving meds is a time consumer as you have to get the package or dose then specifically give the horse that meds and make sure it did get it… could easily eat up 10 to 15 minutes … 10 minutes per day equals FIVE Hours for a 30 day month… small things do add up
I didn’t know there was such a thing as horse pill pockets. We used stud muffins for a bit, and then figs, but the one horse usually refuses after a couple weeks (prascend). Wrapping the pill in grass has been working for the summer, but grass is soon to be gone. Owner is useless at coming up with her own ideas.
There are several! My favorite are called “Pill Camo”. They come in small or large, the small are fine and a bag lasts 2 months.
I require all my boarders with horses who need pills to provide some kind of pill pocket that is easy to use. I am not messing around with hollowing out holes in carrots, etc. it’s too time consuming.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
