@CL Moonriver if you gave my horse something without talking to me or the vet I would have an issue. You have this weird thing with anaphylaxis and horses. From your posts here I would not trust you to handle my horse in any capacity.
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Crazy horse man (not lady)? Maybe. Probably wouldn’t be involved in rescue work if I were not a little bit crazy.
My horses mean everything to me. So if you want me to apologize for dispatching small animals with a firearm when said small animals are a known threat to my horses? Sorry, but I’m not going to do so. If you want me to euthanize a horse due to monetary issues? Where I know cure is possible, but expensive? I’m not going to do that either. I will find a way. I will mortgage my house if I have to.
I’m not claiming my moral value system is totally consistent. It’s definitely not. But I don’t know of many humans who do have a totally consistent moral value system unless they are PETA morons.
And even the PETA people are just spewing hot air. After all, it’s easy to say a rat’s life is just as valuable as a human’s life. it’s a lot harder to practice what you preach when your own child is the one who is affected.
That’s pretty much how I feel about my horses. My horses ARE my children. I am 42 years old, unmarried, and have no human children of my own. My horses are my children. I will protect them against any threat using whatever means I have to, even if that means I have to kill to protect them.
You’d probably be better off trusting me than most other people. After all, my rules are pretty simple.
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If it’s an emergency and I don’t feel like there is time for me to contact a vet or contact you? I will do what I believe I have to do to save your horse’s life. Once I have done that, I will contact the vet, and then you, in that order.
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If it is urgent (but not an emergency), I will do what the vet tells me to do, even if I have not been able to contact you for approval first. (I will try to contact you at least once, though, before I do anything.)
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If it’s not an emergency and is not urgent? I will contact both you and the vet, discuss the situation, and get approval from both of you before I initiate treatment.
If you think I am missing something, please say so. But I believe those three simple rules are in the very best interest of your horse.
Btw, please keep in mind that the OP asked how to LEGALLY get rid of prescription meds. All of my responses were based on that. The responses I criticized were, in fact, suggesting ILLEGAL methods of disposing of prescription meds. The simple fact is that it is NOT legal for you to sell them, and it is NOT legal for you to give them to someone else. So the bottom line is this: The people who said “Take them to a pharmacy” and the people who said “Take them back to the vet” are the only people who actually answered the OP’s question. The OP wanted LEGAL methods. And whatever your own personal values might be, the simple fact remains: Giving away prescription drugs, or selling them to other people is NOT a legal way of getting rid of them.
I think the OP got her question answered with a ton of side information! :lol: I take no umbrage with dispatching small animals. I just disagree with passing judgement on when people let go of their pets or horses. My horse is like my kid too. It’s why I am ademant about people talking to me or the vet first before giving medications of any sort. If for some strange reason I am unreachable then by all means save my horse.
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I think we are basically in full agreement here. If it is a TRUE emergency, I will do what I have to in order to save your horse without contacting you or a vet first. Time doesn’t allow for it. If it’s not a true emergency, I will contact the vet first, and then contact you, and say “This is what the vet thinks. This is what the vet says I should do.” If you tell me not to do it? Well, my response at that point depends. I might do it anyway if the vet and I both agree that it is in the best interests of your horse. There are times where I will say “I don’t care what the owner wants. I’m going to do what the vet says I should do.” Because again, in the end, the life of the horse is my primary concern. I’ll deal with the legal consequences later.
If I contact the vet and he tells me what to do, and then I try to contact you and I cannot get a hold of you? I will use my judgement and the judgement of the vet to determine how long we can wait before initiating treatment without getting your approval first.
If I contact you and you tell me to euthanize the horse, even though both I and the vet are in agreement that the horse can be cured? Well, I will tell you to come get your horse and do it yourself. Because it’s simply not an order I can follow. I can’t stop you from doing it. But I CAN decide I won’t play a part in it.
Honestly, this seems to me to be the best course of action that I can possibly follow that is in both the best interests of the horse and the owner.
So again, I honestly think you’d be better off trusting me with your horse than a lot of other people. After all, I’ve seen a lot of barn managers who think they know more than they actually do. And who are way to quick to say “Oh, this is obviously what’s wrong with this horse. So just give them some of this.” And they never bother to ask a vet first. And personally, I think that practice is very dangerous. I don’t think I, or anyone else who is not a vet has any business giving prescription medication to a horse without vet orders unless it is a true emergency where I don’t have time to talk to a vet first.
Glad to hear you don’t take any interest in whether I shoot small animals or not. My personal belief is that if you kept your horse here, I would be doing a disservice to your horse if I did not shoot those small animals. I believe part of my responsibility is to ensure that your horse is kept in an environment that is as free from parasites and diseases as I can reasonably make it be.
My vet has sold me prescription oral Banamine, Bute, and oral Dormosedan with no horse’s name on the jar, for emergency use. He trusts that between me and my very experienced coach, we can make correct decisions.
When my horse had several colon impaction colics two winters ago (not drinking enough) I learned from experience that the right protocol was to give her a dose of Banamine, any molasses water she would take, let her lie down and sleep it off, and spend the night at the barn myself until she stood up, wandered out into the paddock, and took a good poop.
Pretty much as fast a resolution as the one time I got her tubed by an emergency vet.
I didn’t need to call the vet at 10 pm because I knew what he would say. And he would likely take up to an hour to call back in working hours.
Anyone who is caretaking her has instructions to administet Banamine immediately if she shows symptoms again.
Banamine doesn’t make colic worse. It can however mask symptoms because of its analgesic effect and make naieve owners think the underlying problem is resolved.
There is a fine line between many prescription drugs and otc drugs. Indeed, some human drugs move from one category to the other over time, especially when patents expire.
Most of the panic over human prescription drugs is generated from fears about opiods, and to a lesser extent misuse of antibiotics which leads to resistant diseases. And in an earlier day, tranquilizers and amphetamines.
I would not hesitate to offer unexpired Banamine or Bute to a friend for free or in an emergency. More specialized meds, I might just dispose of wherever they are taken. Or keep in my fridge just in case!
My vet also sells me prescription drugs with no horse’s name on it. Although given where I live, I doubt it has anything to do with him trusting I know what I am doing. It probably has much more to do with the fact that horses, cows, pigs, etc. are all the same to him. And since I live in a major farming area. He simply doesn’t want to be bothered by someone with 500 head of cattle calling him anytime one of their cows has a problem.
That said, I’m glad that I can buy epinephrine and such from him with no questions asked. All I have to say is “I like to have it available in case one of my horses has a serious reaction to something.” I’ve never had to give epinephrine, but I have had to give IM dex because of a serious, but not life-threatening reaction. I was glad I had it available.
For the most part, I agree with you, Scribbler. But for now, I will maintain my view that in some cases, banamine can make colic worse, or sometimes even cause colic when no colic existed to begin with. Banamine by itself can cause intestinal distress (as can basically all NSAID’s). So I stand by my argument that in most cases banamine is not a drug that should be given without vet advice. I also think scientific documentation that banamine and bute are WAY overused, sometimes to the detriment of the horse, is pretty overwhelming.
Of course, I still have both banamine and bute here. And I regularly use them when required. But it’s very important that people keep up on the most recent research. And it kind of bothers me when I quote a link to a recent scientific article to someone, and they tell me “You can keep your links to yourself.” That basically says to me that said person has no idea what they are doing, and also has no interest in educating themselves on the latest scientific thought.
That bolded is not how that works, really.
One shot of Banamine won’t have any “intestinal distress” effects and it may help with the pain of colic and a horse injuring itself if it is trashing around from the pain.
Don’t confuse that with long term use of some oral NSAID.
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That’s fair. But given oral banamine paste takes around 45 minutes or longer to work, I suppose my question still remains: Is giving banamine ever a true emergency? Is there ever a situation where you can’t make a phone call first and ask a vet if banamine is the right course of action?
Well yes, I’m sure there are plenty of us who have vets who are in single vet practices and even in an emergency might not be immediately reachable. Also giving Banamine IV will be much faster acting and more accurate than oral.
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This coupled with, when my mare has coliced and I call the vet, first thing out of their mouth is “do you have” or “have you given banamine and if so how much?”
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The logic of prescribing oral drugs to a barnful of amateur owners without the training to inject IV (which is another level above IM) seems obvious to me.
I feel like Banamine kicks in faster than 45 minutes on my horse. Maybe that’s 45 minutes to maximum effectiveness. My vet can take over an hour to return my call.
Definitely if you don’t know how to do IV, oral banamine is the way to go (never IM of course) but I was speaking specifically to Moonriver who is claiming to be a very knowledgeable horse person. I would think someone like that would have learned to give IV shots by now.
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at least here we have Take Back Meds events twice a year, any meds/drugs -legal or illegal-- can be turned in no questions asked
we recently went through this also but the meds were just over $1,000 for daughter’s horse He was administered two douches when the primary health issue was something completely different.
Daughter mention this on one of public accounts and a person she knew commented that her horse had been diagnosed with that and she was holding onto the scrip since she could not afford the thousand dollars for the meds.
We gave her the meds as the scrip matched the drugs
Was it legal ? I do not think so but after being in a jury pool sixty people for a drug trial of a person who was being faced five years for possession with intent to distributed ten pounds of marijuana which he was claiming was for personal use… with a pool of 60 people they could not find 12 to set on the jury
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For christs sake CL give it a rest already. You are doing a great job at making yourself unwelcome here.
try lurking more and posting less for while.
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I know lots of very knowledgeable horse people who do not do IV injections.
Not sticking up for anyone here. Just saying that one can be knowledgeable and still not have that particular skill.
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For the love of all that is holy, Moonriver, get over it. If you’re still bothered, days later, that you are not someone I’d trust to point me toward solid education in veterinary medicine, then you should reconsider whether you’re able to cope with the disagreement you’re likely to regularly face on a public forum like this.
For the record, you linked to a 4.5 year old blog post on a web resource targeted to naive horse owners, not to a “recent scientific article”.
I get my veterinary information from peer-reviewed scholarly journals, from veterinarians who are involved in both clinical practice and academic research/teaching, and indeed occasionally from intelligent folks on this forum who provide links and thoughtful discussion of actual scientific research articles. I have no interest in recommended veterinary reading from some forum newcomer whose posts to date seem to demonstrate a bizarre fixation on epinephrine, an illogical vilification of topical antibiotics, unconventional ideas about systemic antibiotics, a hostile attitude toward individuals who express disagreement, lack of compassion for people who’ve lost horses in traumatic situations, an inability to distinguish facts and opinions, and perhaps most importantly, nothing that suggests to me that they have any understanding of veterinary medicine – including the capacity to fully interpret veterinary articles written for a lay-audience. In short, you can keep your links, because your endorsement of an article is worth less than zero to me. I’m sorry to spell it out so bluntly, but if you are that bothered by why I am not interested in links you post, now you know.
I don’t know if you’re looking for some petty beef, or just want some moral victory in this thread even though your ever-evolving and increasingly personal arguments are finding no purchase. That’s not what most of us are here for, and you will probably be disappointed by how you are received if this is how you continue to handle disagreement.
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Moonriver has described themselves as socially isolated, old school/ basic in horse care approach, in a fairly remote area, and connected to the larger horse world only through an apparently low end rescue or sanctuary.
It’s good they are breaking their isolation by coming onto a knowledgeable public forum. But it’s also clear from many of their comments that despite having horses for a couple of decades, they aren’t really up to speed on modern horse care practises.
Case in point, I think one of the earliest started topics was asking about rotational monthly worming which has been discontinued as best practice for quite some time.
If Moonriver chooses to stay with the forum and listen to what’s being said here in all kinds of topics, that will be a huge learning experience. We have vets, breeders, barn owners, retired high level competitors, people with scientific training, etc.
Invariably the COTH consensus on any knowledge based topic comes out with the best current practices. Opinions on things like best saddle brands, breeds, riding styles, will be all over the map, but the horse care, feeding, vet, etc. Info will tend to be reliable.
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