My mare was just diagnosed with cushings, and we’re starting her on prascend. I’m wondering how to feed it, as she can’t have any sugary treats like German muffins/carrots/apples that I would normally hide pills in. Any ideas on what type of low sugar treat I could hide it in?
You can use little sticky pieces of Fig Newtons, the cinnamon apple flavor is what our gelding likes.
Just break a piece that the pill can be stuck in there.
You can do what we do now, drill a hole with a battery type hand drill in some harder treat and stick the pill in there, then plug the hole with a little piece of senior feed mashed in there.
Hold the treat with pliers, be careful not to drill thru your hand, don’t ask.
The trick is to first feed a few treats without pill, give yourself a couple days without.
Then feed one treat with the pill and immediately chase it with another treat or three, so the horse doesn’t realize there was a pill somewhere there.
If you only feed one treat with a pill, horses catch onto the strange taste and end up not wanting any treat.
At the vet clinic, they put the pill in a syringe with water, it dissolves and they squirt it in.
There may be a time at first your horse may not want to eat well, after it has been on Prascend for some days.
Many report that, but ours never really did go thru that.
At any change, horse not eating, looking depressed or aggressive, let your vet know and if vet approves, halve the dose for a couple weeks.
After two years on Prascend, our horse needed thyroid supplement, so be aware that Cushings may be a progressive disease, if slow to progress and that more can be done.
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My pony gets half a pill. I dissolve the half pill in a little bit of warm water and syringe it in his mouth after he eats his grain. He will NOT eat his feed if it has Prascend in it no matter what I add to try to disguise the taste. I tried the hollowed out baby carrot. He figured that one out by the third carrot and refused the carrots.
This works really well and he doesn’t seem to mind being dosed. It works better AFTER he eats. Then he gets to go outside and eat his favorite hay.
You may have to relax your stance on apples or carrots. A chunk of apple with a hole for the pill works for a couple horses I know. Another gets tiny handfuls of feed, and one just happens to have the pill in it. The benefit of getting the pill probaby outweighs the damage from a couple treats.
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My mare gets some soaked alfalfa pellets then 2 cups of TC Senior on top (slightly soaked). Then I add her pill on top of that. She loves the TC Senior (but doesn’t need the fat/calories from it hence why its only 2 cups) so she eats it right up. I tried hiding it in treats - mainly apples but she quickly figured that out and has no desire to eat apples anymore and is suspicious of any other treat.
She is on a ration balancer but hard to hide it in there as it’s not as tasty as the TC Senior.
Honestly, a piece of apple is not going to kill your horse. The amount of sugar in their hay far exceeds the sugar in an apple. Yes, you should not feed sugary treats but I would not be concerned about a piece of apple or small cookie if it will get the meds in your horse.
My pony won’t eat it in anything, so we shove it in his mouth and hold his mouth shut for a minute, then let him eat his grain. Usually he will swallow the pill in order to get a mouthful of grain, so it works. Sometimes he spits it out. Sigh.
My guy will eat it in an apple but not every day; if I was patient I’d mix up a variety of goodies to hide it in so that there was enough novelty he would eat it…but it works just as well to stick it in the back of his mouth instead. LOL.
To be honest, I make tiny pill pockets from German muffins (1 muffin makes 4 pill pockets) to get Prascend down my guys. They’ve all gone off their grain since being on it and it’s too darn many horses to individually pill every day.
I used to stick them in a baby carrot or piece of an apple, but they got wise to that pretty quick.
Pick some treat your horse is fond of and figure out a way to make a (small) pill pocket from it. A tiny bit of a sugary treat isn’t a sin.
I went with half a stud muffin for about a year then he wouldn’t touch them with or without the meds in them all of a sudden so we had to switch to dosing it. I agree that one little treat or piece of apple is no big deal.
I was using the Fig Newton treats for a year without any problem.
Then needed surgery and a friend took him to her place for a couple weeks, until I was back where I could do chores.
He came back not wanting to eat those treats, somehow she didn’t follow instructions and he learned there was a pill there and would not touch those any more.
I then found other treats he still did like, used those for a bit without pill, then with a pill in one chased with more treats.
In the past three years he has been eating those just fine.
If you use treats, do it right and hope your horse cooperates.
One treat just won’t last for long with most horses.
Use treats where the horse doesn’t know any one may have something in it by using more than just the first one with the pill and letting the horse be interested in the next and next one, so it doesn’t notice that first one may have an odd taste.
I use an old UlcerGuard tube to dose my mare - pull the plunger back a bit, drop in the Prascend tablet, add some water, and let it sit upright a few minutes. The tablet softens / dissolves and then I can dose the mare. I make sure to get the syringe into the side of her mouth, between the teeth and cheek, and hold her head up, mouth closed for about 30 seconds. Works very well for us.
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Before you get too creative, you might try just putting the pill in the feed. I have three horses on Prascend and they all eat it readily. I check to be sure the pill is gone when they finish. So far, over several years, the pills are always gone.
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Please make notes on all the ^ above methods …may need some or ALL of them during this medication journey.
It’s easy until it’s Tough !
Good Luck !
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When I had a pony on prascend, all I did was toss the little pill in with his feed and he at it right up.
I’d try that first. If that doesn’t work, a small treat won’t hurt her.
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When I first started, I held a handful of tasty sweetfeed grain and just put the pill in there and hand fed it.
Worked for a few days, then horse started shifting thru the grain and leaving the pill in my hand.
I told him to eat it and he did, a few times, then he just would not and knew exactly what he was doing, refusing to eat it.
That is when I started using Fig Newtons, on someone else’s recommendation.
Just keep all this in mind and find whatever works, whenever it works, for your horse.
My horse Louie has been on Prascend for years. I use a small pocket knife to make a hole in a large chunk of carrot or apple for the two pills to fit in and then feed it to him daily.
Thank you for all of the suggestions!! I’m going to try the fig newton cookie tonight, hopefully she likes it. She’s quite the little piggy, so I’m hoping this trait will not change.
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Mine was one who went off his grain, and periodically refuses treats for weeks even before starting Prascend.
While he did eat the half pill with his grain, provided it wasn’t in the first mouthful, the thing is so tiny that if he did spit it out it would be easy to miss seeing it. And then he stopped eating his grain.
I use a 12cc syringe, put the pill in (he’s up to a whole one now) and suck up about 4-6cc of hot water (because it dissolves better, faster and in the winter cold water freezes before the pill breaks down). 4-6cc is too small an amount to be spat out.
My guy is very good about it and is no trouble for the barn staff to dose, and I don’t have to worry about whether or not he’s actually getting it.
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Yep, fig newtons with no pill first. Then change it up from time to time with different treats. Yes for a while they may go off feed for a bit but eventually this goes away. I don’t have personal experience with cushings in my horses, but I have had to care for cushings horses for friends and when I ran a boarding facility.
- Hide pill in apple
- Pony turns his nose up
- Hide pill in apple sauce
- See #2
- Hide pill in “pill pocket” treat
- See #2, pony laughs
- Cry in tack room, wipe tears, corner pony
- Hide pill in grain, pony’s miracle lips eats every scrap----------------- except pill
- Drill hole in carrot, carefully cover pill
- Pony eats around pill, spits it out and laughs
- Grab pony and push pill into back of mouth, hold head, pony diligently swallows then spits out pill- works 50/50.
- More tears, snot, dissolve pill in 10 cc syringe with warm water and dose pony. Every day.
I used to get formulated powder (apple flavor) that is no longer available to me due to legal reasons. 
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I’ve used it for several horses. I break pill in half, put both halves in with their Low Starch feed.
All gone.
