How do I get a fussy eater to take antibiotics?

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Mary Poppins

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My boy has an infection in his front foot caused by mud fever.

The Vet has given me antibiotics for him but he is such a fussy eater, I don't know how I'm gonna get him to eat them - he has to have 1 and a half sachets a day for a week.

In his feed he has conditioning cubes and mollichaff with apples, carrots, and added cortaflex. He picks at his breakfast and what he doesn't eat then I put into his dinner which he will eventually eat throughout the night, but with antibiotics in it I know he aint gonna touch it!

Any ideas how I can disguise the AB or tips on how to get him to eat his dinner with them in it :confused:
 
try some treacle covered bread with the AB in.

or if they will dissolve in wate you could try syringing it down him.

Or if you want to try it in his feed maybetry adding apple juice or molasses to make it tasty.

I would also feed themin a fairly small feed with no other hay etc and no other additives in it to make sure he takes all the AB. Then you can feed his other supplements after and leave that feed with himover night.

Hope that helps
 
Get a worming syringe, wash it out.

Mix the antibiotics with flour and water to make a paste, add a little icing sugar ("makes the medicine go down" tee hee!) Fill the syringe and dispense as you would a wormer.

Works a treat with mine!
 
My big lad has just had 3 weeks of ABs, 3 sachets a day plus 4 sachets of danilon a day. It was a struggle to get him to take that lot. As he comes in at lunchtime, I split it into 3 feeds a day, with his last feed being split into 2 big trugs of feed. He likes mix (although I don't usually feed it to him), so I put his antibiotics into the mix and he would only eat it if I added apple puree baby food - I tried everything else, apple juice, carrots, treacle, etc., he just wouldn't touch it, but the baby food worked most of the time. Some horses like marmite sandwiches, so that might be worth a try. When one of my others had to have antibiotics, he refused everything, so I had to syringe him.
 
what I did with my filly was make up a banana and orange smoothy in a blender and put the AB in that and mix it with her feed. worked a treat!
 
Could you just ask your vet for IM antibiotics instead? Its a heck of a lot easier to inject a fussy eater than it is to feed them, if hes alright with injections that is :). Although if you dont like doing injections then fair enough, at one point I was injecting 3 horses at the same time as they all got kicked on the same day by a new horse badly (new horse has since left the yard) as owners didnt want to!
 
If the horse is just a bit picky I add dried mint to their hard feed. I tried all sorts of things before this, but this got the best results.

If the horse is really fussy then I now ask for the ABs in a syringe or injection. I know it's more expensive but at least you know they get the full amount.

I have mixed the sachets with natural yoghurt before now & the syringed.
 
My horse won't touch his feed if he has so much as a sniff of medicine in it. When I've had to give him antibiotics, I scoop the inside of an apple out, pour the powder in, wait for it to soak in a little and then jam the apple back into the hole. Worked every time! :)
 
Mary Poppins said:
My boy has an infection in his front foot caused by mud fever.

The Vet has given me antibiotics for him but he is such a fussy eater, I don't know how I'm gonna get him to eat them - he has to have 1 and a half sachets a day for a week.

In his feed he has conditioning cubes and mollichaff with apples, carrots, and added cortaflex. He picks at his breakfast and what he doesn't eat then I put into his dinner which he will eventually eat throughout the night, but with antibiotics in it I know he aint gonna touch it!

Any ideas how I can disguise the AB or tips on how to get him to eat his dinner with them in it :confused:
Click to expand...

Mix the antibiotics with yoghurt and use a syringe!
 
I had a horse who wouldn't eat his antibiotics so I added tiny bit of water to make a paste, cut a hole in a carrot and pushed the antibiotics into the hole in the carrot - worked for 2 days before he figured the carrots tasted funny, so then I switched to apples.
 
When Splish was on AB's for a week, we'd exhausted every way of disguising them in his feed as he just wouldn't eat it. We ended up making "Equitrim treats" by mixing water and icing sugar into a paste, then adding the AB's and making it up to a really thick consistency with dried mint. roll into ball shapes and put them in the fridge, they harden, and voila, minty treats!
 
My greedy cob can sniff medicine a mile off and refuses to touch it.
Flavoured chaff, apple juice, hiding it in treats etc doesn't work.

The only things that work for me are
1. Mixing powder to a paste with water and peppermint essence from the cake making isle in the supermarket and then mixing with some chaff

2. Mixing powder to a paste in black treacle and a bit of water and mixing in some chaff. This can be difficult if your feed room is unheated because the treacle goes harder in the cold.

Good luck!
 
Does anyone know the price difference between injectable and normal antibiotics? I would be thrilled to be able to inject rather than covering myself and anything close by as I try to syringe it in!!
 
I've been successful with coating the bottom of a feed bowl with molasses, sprinkle the powder on top, then more molasses with a small feed on top. They spend ages licking the bowl, and even if they tip the bowl over the powder won't spill onto the floor.
 
We used to mix bute with instant hot chocolate paste and syringe that in to the Old Appy, did it each day for about 3 years, sure it would work for AB's.
 
ice sugar and water, and syringe down the neck, if you use just water its too runny and comes right back out again, make it a paste like wormer. works a treat.

My vet also told me you can put apples in blender and syringe that paste too. but i not tried that i always use ice sugar, my mare wont take anything in her food so i have to always give her stuff that way
 
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