It took my old gelding five whole months to fully respond to pergolide, though I do think that’s an unusually long time. His skin condition cleared up in a month or two, I think.
Luckily, Prascend is teeny and dissolves easily, so I just dissolve one pill in a couple of tablespoons of water and mix it in with his dinner, which consists of soaked alfalfa cubes and his concentrates. I think having a large bowl of food makes it easier to disperse and conceal the taste.
OP, your struggle with various foodstuffs/attempts to hide Prascend sounds very familiar. For some reason, a full pill is totally unacceptable to my mare, but she gobbles up a half pill no problem in her feed. Maybe try breaking the pill in half (easy to do) and put into two feedings (if your horse needs the full pill - we tapered my mare to half a pill and she’s doing great on that). It did take a couple of months to see the full benefits. Good luck!
My guy eats his hidden in a date. Since your horse refuses the fig Newton’s and fruit roll ups a date will probably not tempt her but you might try it to see.
I’ve used the cream in an oatmeal cream pie to disguise Previcox, maybe it will work for this? Just break the cookie in half, give undoctored half first then give the second half with the pill shoved into the cream center. My mare never slowed down, and she was the type to get highly offended when I tired to sneak meds into her feed.
I have two mares on Prascend and one is like your horse. After hiding the pill in apples and carrots a few times, it was several months before she’d eat either again. I pop the pill in a syringe, draw up water and shake it to dissolve it. But some gets left behind in the syringe and her levels were off after switching to this method so we had to put 11/2 pills in the syringe to ensure she got enough. I tried molasses, apples sauce, etc if the feed but no luck. Recently I started dropping the whole pill in her ration balancer and topping with canola oil. That’s been working for a week so far but we’ll see if it lasts. Hopefully you can find a method that works. I wish they’d make an injectable formulation, or one that doesn’t taste so bad.
I went through a similar struggle with my pony- he would eat a hidden pill in his grain for a few days, then refused to touch his grain again, even for a good week after I stopped hiding the prascend in it. After many trials, I found that a handful of alfalfa hay wadded up with the pill in the middle seemed to do it for him. The really tough ones at the barn get theirs dissolved and then added to a good amount of grain or hay pellets. Interestingly enough, the alfalfa blend hay pellets seem to be the most accepted- I don’t know if it’s better at disguising the flavour or just tasty enough that they’ll suffer through it.
Thanks all- very helpful. The vet just says to keep persevering as something will work!
We have cut down to 1/4 pill in a carrot and will slowly build up again- if she will continue to take the carrot! I got some alfalfa pellets which mare thinks are GREAT so perhaps we can progress to pill in feed again.
Banana could work. Pretty strong taste and smell. You could purée it like baby food and keep in a jar in refrigerator or bring bananas to the barn.
I dissolve in a bit of water then add it to a 20 ml syringe with prune juice. AFter doing it this way for months, she still thinks it’s a great treat
Last update: many thanks for all your suggestions. We tried the pill in a carrot starting with 1/4 pill and increasing dose every 4 days. Mare refused carrots completely when we got to a full pill. I am paying (a lot) extra for BO to syringe med after AM feed now. If given before she is fed, she won’t eat. DAMN HORSE!
I have actually written to the pharmaceutical company that makes Prascend to ask them to change the formulation to make it more palatable. It seems most horses really object to the taste.
Try 1/2 pill twice per day. I put mine in a carrot, but it’s a reasonably big piece of carrot, two inches long, and at least 1 1/2 inches across. I make an opening in the carrot with a flat head screwdriver, and slot the 1/2 pill into that. Both of mine eat those happily (I can use apple, but they prefer carrots), and my vet’s fine with the 1/2 dose 12 hours apart. Both horses are doing well on this regimen.
She is refusing carrots with or without pills now. I decided not to putz around with feeding the med, syringe and have done with it.
With my pony - feed first and then syringe before he gets to go out and eat grass. By the time he has chowed down on some green grass he has forgotten about the meds.
If you do decide to try again, the orange gummy slices are undefeated at our barn 
I thought I would update you all- we started pergolide on July 9, dropped back to 1/4 pill after a week or so and gradually increased to the full dose by the last week of July.
Mare was miserable for 6 weeks- no appetite, refusing feeds AND TREATS! She was lethargic and just looked miserable.
We tried several different feeds to tempt her but nothing worked for more than 2-3 days. Fortunately she was still grazing. Vet said to persist for a bit longer, but it took until last week (7 weeks on full dose) before she began to feel better. Today she was waiting at the gate for her breakfast bright eyed and bushy tailed. She polished her feed tub, pushed open her stall door to see if she could find seconds in the aisle or feed room and begged for treats! She looks alert and happy again FINALLY! I have my friend back!
I posted this to let everyone in a similar situation know that patience is important at the start of treatment for Cushings, it may take weeks for the pituitary-adrenal glands to recalibrate so hang in there. Don’t expect results immediately, and don’t give up.
I dissolve the 1/2 tab dose of Prascend in a tiny amount of hot water, then add prune juice to make ~ 20 cc’s and fill a syringe. My mare loves her daily syringeful of “cocktail”
Your persistence paid off. I hope she continues to feel like her old self.
Great update!
I’m going through this now with our little Shetland pony. She’s 22 and 10 hands and her dosage is 1/2 pill daily. She ate it willingly at first in her senior feed (she has terrible teeth). We went though several trials with different foods and settled on a piece of bread squished around the pill into a doughy lump. So far, it’s working. I’m ordering a sheep/goat bolus for when it stops working because, well, she’s a Shetland, and her Scottish stubbornness is bound to come through at some point, lol.
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