Capsules go down fine, even for my picky eaters.
I did have one horse that always managed to drop a few on the floor. Using a feed bag for her meds totally solved that issue, worked great.
I agree, my horse happily ate the capsules in his grain.
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So did you end up going with the capsules and putting them directly in the feed? I’ve always opened the capsules and syringed but that was for only 7 days.
My new guy tested positive for Lyme and will be treating for 30 days (ugh). Not thrilled with the thoughts of opening and prepping for 30 days. I’m going to try dropping the capsules into his feed and hopefully avoid the hassle of opening the capsules.
I drop the caps right on top of the feed. She eats that really well, only dropping 1 every few meals. I found when I sprinkled 1/4c or so of alfalfa pellets in top of the capsules, whatever she drops she goes around and eats, and is either eating up any capsule she dropped, or she’s just not dropping any
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Today is day 4 and so far a big thumbs up! I ordered the minocycline capsules through ValleyVet, and he is eating the capsules in 2 lb of Tribute Kalm Ultra.
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Our horse wouldn’t touch the capsules sadly. So I decided to order the apple flavored Mino powder from Rood & Riddle’s pharmacy. I’ve frankly never seen this horse eat meds-in-her-meal with this much gusto. Ha. We simply added the scoop of powder to her grain, added some water and mixed. She loved it, who would have thunk.
She does tend to drop grain because she’s constantly looking around and chews with her mouth open (cue my 4 year old son) so like another poster above I sweep back whatever’s on the stall floor and anything she dropped she licks up (if it’s a lot I sweep it into a neat little pile on the floor for her). Also, now that treatment is complete (30 days) she does seem much more herself and comfortable… I’ll retest in a couple of months.
The frustrating thing about Lyme is that there’s no immunity so a horse can get it again as we all know— and we’re in a high tick prevalence area so it’s a constant battle of vigilance and spot on treatment/fly spray.
May I ask what it cost for a 30 day supply (or 60 days if that was a bulk discount)?
I’m curious why you only treated for 30 days. My vet prefers 60, up to 90, for a chronic infection. Was your horse’s titer not terribly high?
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@JB this horse’s titer was quite low in fact. But it was chronic according to Cornell so we decided to treat anyway. We went with 30 days to see how things looked upon re-testing after her original low titer. She wasn’t overly symptomatic but was NQR in the way that an owner knows, kwim?
A 30-day supply was about $430.
60 scoops at 2 grams a scoop
1 scoop am, 1 scoop pm. 30 days.
She liked it so much we worried she wouldn’t want her grain once the meds were gone 
Thanks! I know treatment duration is a little up in the air. I treated for 60 days but her titer was 13,000 chronic, so that’s likely why 60 and not 30. And I’ll retest in 6 months, rather than 3, since apparently it can take quite a while for numbers to come down, especially when they start high.
And yes, kwym! My mare was just…off. She did all the things, wasn’t lame, ate like she always had, great weight, but she’s a high energy TB mare and her energy was like 95%. Nobody would have said “she looks wrong”, but I knew.
Thanks for the $. I used the capsules from Valley Vet and the 6 bottles to get me to 60 days, with leftover, was cheaper (about $900) than buying just the 60 days with 500 cap bottles plus a couple extra 50 cap bottles.
The capsules are easier to access and a bit cheaper too. Alas it wasn’t to be! Ha. Like you, I wonder if I should wait longer than the 3 months (from start of treatment) to re-test… maybe I’ll wait 4 months, as a compromise.
When this mare was owner-observed NQR, it was things like having more difficulty standing up after sleeping lying down, kind of dragging in energy around the pasture, and overall cranky. But also had lost some condition behind. All of those things have improved since completing the 30-day treatment with Mino.
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So far I’ve been able to put the capsules in my boys feed and watch him when he eats. Anything that gets dropped I’ve been able to put back in. 6 days in and so far afaik, I’ve only seen 2 dropped capsules. I’m hoping to make the 30 days doing this and hope that I didn’t just jinx myself by posting. If he catches on then I guess (ugh) I’ll have to syringe. With my last boy, there is no way I could have dropped capsules in…I’d have to syringe in.
Larbear - glad it’s working for you so far. Syringing yes ugh, I definitely did not want to go there. Which is why I was grateful (not to mention surprised) at how palatable the compounded apple flavor powder turned out to be – he didn’t even flinch. Keep us posted on your beastie 
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Glad to know there’s a flavoured powder available. I’m ok with making up a syringe and doing it that way but the thoughts of opening all the capsules… doing it twice a day and then for 30 days (or God forbid 60) would be a royal pita!
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