Hello. Has anyone come up with creative ways to give older, picky horses medications and supplements? I have a 29-year-old quarter horse mare who won’t eat anything and cannot take oral medication, like paste. I’ve tried hiding the pills in cookies, grinding them in bran with o&m, and she refuses it all. Any advice would be amazing.
I like to sneak them in with a mixture of carrots and a small sprinkle of sweet feed. I also feed soaked alfalfa cubes and that helps them stick a little better. Have you tried gradually adding the pills? Try starting with just a few and add to tolerance.
Drizzling molasses is another idea that might help disguise the taste. Hope this helps.
Pelleted supplements usually are accepted better by horses that hate powders. What kind of meds? Can you get flavored powder instead?
You said cookies, but did you try Fig Newtons? They have a pretty strong flavor, and are nice and sticky.
I second the fig newtons, though some horses are a little confused at first by the texture of the “cake” part. According to my vet marshmellows work pretty well. Since you tried grinding the pills, did you try making a moist mashwith a little water? I do that with senior feed then add a dollop of maple syrup over the powdered part for one extremely picky mare. Has worked every time for her.
Pills, I dig a hole in an apple piece, drop in pills and coat with molasses. Powder, I put on grain and soak with molasses.
I hide pills in a small handful of Chaffhaye. Take a handful, put the pill on top, squeeze it into a ball and feed.
I mix powdered supplements w/ water and psyllium and syringe feed them. My horses love the flavor of turmeric, so I add some.
I know you said you cannot do paste but I use a syringe for most everything. I change up between the following: grape jelly, strawberry jelly, molasses, honey, blueberry syrup, srtawberry syrup and caramel syrup (I have one I have to give omeprazole paste every evening and I put in a syringe with any one of those.)
Picky ones are such a PITA. I always put plenty extra in the syringe and make a game out of it. All of mine get excited when they see the syringe and want a squirt. It makes worming and everything else so easy.
Turmeric and fenugreek are great for masking stuff.
I alearned about deworming horses using bread from an old time Arab breeder Last year. Most horses like bread…give a piece of untainted, then prepare your mixture and put it smack dab in the middle of the bread, fold it up and squeeze tight, and off you go.
Molasses and apple sauce are also your friend.
Squeezy Buns! They’re very malleable and you can shove pills right into them.
Does your horse eat soaked feed? Just dump powders in there and maybe mix in a little applesauce or something tasty.
I have one horse who simply will.not. eat anything that has any meds added to it.
I’ve tried hiding it every way I can and he just won’t go near it.
It doesn’t help that he won’t eat ANYTHING that he does not consider ‘horse food’.
The only thing I can do successfully is put the meds in apple sauce - he doesn’t like apples either - but the consistency holds the meds well - or in a molasses soup and syringe it in.
You haven’t had any problems with the seeds in the fig newtons? It sounds like a good idea and so far the only thing I haven’t tried…
I haven’t had any experience with Chaffhaye, but it looks interesting. So does the tumeric. Thanks for the advice. My mare will not allow a syringe to come within a mile of her, so that kind of delivery is out, unfortunately.
[QUOTE=LauraKY;8054222]
Pelleted supplements usually are accepted better by horses that hate powders. What kind of meds? Can you get flavored powder instead?[/QUOTE]
She is on prescend and previcox, both in the pill form. She won’t allow any syringe delivery, so we’re stuck with pills. I’ve tried flavored powdered bute, but it’s a no-go. She’s smarter than me, that’s for sure…
[QUOTE=3rottenponies;8054634]
Turmeric and fenugreek are great for masking stuff.
I alearned about deworming horses using bread from an old time Arab breeder Last year. Most horses like bread…give a piece of untainted, then prepare your mixture and put it smack dab in the middle of the bread, fold it up and squeeze tight, and off you go.
Molasses and apple sauce are also your friend.[/QUOTE]
I will give this a try as well. Thanks.
That’s too bad about the syringe. That’s the only way I can get bute into my mini gelding. I mix it with applesauce.
See if you can get a sample of fenugreek to make sure your mare likes it. My little gelding can’t stand the stuff and actually tosses the feed tub away if fenugreek is in it in any form. They sure keep us hopping, don’t they?
I put previcox in a carrot, just carve out a hole with a hoof pick. Apple works too.
Will she eat maple syrup on her feed? I used it successfully in the past with picky eaters. Sometimes you have to experiment to see what flavor they like. One likes applesauce but won’t touch molasses; another loves molasses added but won’t touch maple syrup, etc.
If you have an IR horse maple syrup and applesauce both are available as sugar-free as well.
If you soak her feed will she still eat it? I have one that gets meds twice a day and will not eat them or his supplements dry. So I wet his feed and he gobbles it all down.
[QUOTE=2miniB;8054427]
My horses love the flavor of turmeric, so I add some.[/QUOTE]
I love that! My horses are philistines by comparison. How on earth did you ever figure that out?
