Any sort of dosing syringe is going to leave a little in the neck. This is perhaps a couple cc, which isn’t particularly significant when you’re talking about 60/100 cc payload.
But I also start and finish dosing syringes with something tasty. So, in loading it, I’ll put molasses in the tip, then the meds, then more molasses. The horse is getting molasses/meds/molasses, so it’s not quite so terrible. (And any meds left in the neck is limited.)
If the meds will fit, I reuse a skinny wormer syringe for meds. I mix them with just enough applesauce to hold the meds, but still fit in the syringe.
When I fill syringes for oral meds, in general, I add some plain carrier (applesauce, molasses, etc.) first, then add the meds. This way, if there is a little left in the tube it’s mostly just the carrier.
You could try putting something tasty in the syringe afterwards and that way it would push the rest of the meds through and leave the non-medicated material in the end piece.
Could you re-use a wormer syringe? I keep a couple of used wormer syringes to prep my guys for the real thing when I want to worm them. I fill the wormer syringe with sugar water for a few days, then worm them with the real thing. Not all wormer syringes can be re-used; the ones I have are Equimax.
I’m so sorry. I’m another one for whom this is a new term
This is what’s got me puzzled about this CVID:
Back in March my boy got (suspected) strangles – no fever or snotty nose, just 2 draining abscesses. He seemed to take this in stride. Did not treat with antibiotics and he recovered without incident.
Then in June he got a gloppy snotty nose (was fine otherwise) and again recovered without antibiotics. No idea what the cause of the snotty nose was.
So… if he has had CVID this whole time from when his weight loss started back in December, then theoretically the strangles/abscess episode and the snotty nose should have hit him a lot harder = would have required treatment of some sort, or even hospitalization given his lack of antibodies. But he fought both off like a normal horse would.
He did get antibiotics about 10 days ago (as any horse would) for a low grade temp – suspected tick fever – and again he recovered and is doing really well now.
Takeaway being that he did produce antibodies against the strangles and snotty nose – which is good. Gives me hope that his CVID is not full blown (mostly causing weight loss) and might be manageable.
The challenge now is to get him to gain weight.
One other thing: There is a mental aspect to all of this. Every once in a while my boy will act a bit nuts. Will start stall walking and weaving – gets all wound up – and also either sees things that aren’t there (snorting etc.) or will oddly stare into space. Then back to normal. I can’t find a correlation with CVID.
Thank you to all who have supported me. It means a lot! I will continue to update.
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