How do I get my horse to eat anti-biotics?

One of mine won't eat that. I tried grated carrot, fruit juice, and ended up getting a big syringe and filling it with antibiotic mixed with water and shooting it down his throat like a wormer. Don't leave it after mixing it because it sets like concrete if it's too thick! Use apple juice to mix with if you are feeling kind, but mine still hated it!

SO annoying to lose the dose in the food, isn't it???
 
oo my fave topic! having 8 horses there all very different i only have 1 that really wont eat it, i mix ready brek up in a thick paste and use a catering type icing sryinge i suppose you would call it, it looks like a normal syringe but the hole is bigger ,experimant just with ready break first to get the right consistancy, or you could ask your vet for the paste version,
 
Mine has just started Regumate (liquid) which smells foul & she wouldn't eat when mixed in her feed. I now spread a Rich Tea with black treacle, put it face down on a bit of alfa-a then pour on the regumate so the biscuit soaks it up, adding another sprinkle of alfa!! Goes down a treat every morning! ;)
 
Friend of mine recently had to have her very fussy mare on it and ended up putting it on a piece of bread with jam, ate it straight away!
 
Could anyone let you try a little bit of alan and page fast fibre it is good for hiding things in it looks like a bowl of weetabix or soggy al bran when it is made up but my horse loves it .
 
I cooked up some apples, like apple sauce and added plenty of sugar and mixed that in with a small quantity of feed. When they had eaten it I gave him the rest of the feed.

Reading all the replies, the key ingredient seems to be sugar, or something sweet.
 
Mne wouldn't touch t in food, even when mxed with molasses. I used to have it mx it with water and syrinjge it in hs mouth like giving a wormer.
 
Mine positively refuses to eat her powders no matter what I mixed them into. Eventually had to go to the aggro of syringing it into her mouth twice a day. Bought a couple of 60ml syringes, cut the needle section off and made the hole a bit larger. I mixed her powder (x2 large sachets for mine) into plain yogurt, added a little sugar and mint flavouring to improve the flavour and syringed it onto her tongue like a wormer. Because mine needed so much powder, it took several syringe-fulls to dose her each time but she didn't seem to object too much and tolerated it very well, considering. I'm only 5'1 and she's 16.2 and growing, so it could have been pretty difficult for me if she'd chosen to be awkward! I'd not recommend doing it unless you absolutely had to, but it worked for me when nothing else did.
 
I seem to spend half of my life doing this at the moment, I mix it with icing sugar to make a paste and give it to them like wormer! None of mine will eat it in feed, they all spot the poison after one sniff!
 
You can ask your vet to give you liquid antibiotics so you can inject your horse if you're really struggling. I ended up having to do this as nothing would get my boy to eat them. It's not nearly as horrible as it sounds, almost impossible to get wrong and although I was terrified at first, it worked very well and I'm glad we did it. Saved quite a lot of stress for me and it meant he kept eating!
 
You can ask your vet to give you liquid antibiotics so you can inject your horse if you're really struggling. I ended up having to do this as nothing would get my boy to eat them. It's not nearly as horrible as it sounds, almost impossible to get wrong and although I was terrified at first, it worked very well and I'm glad we did it. Saved quite a lot of stress for me and it meant he kept eating!

This. Easier, less stressful if they are picky eaters and at least you know they are getting the right dosage.
 
Despite my inability to use NH methods, and my cruel tendency to beat my horses when the occasion warrants, I manage to give one of mine an oral syringe full of Pred pills dissolved in water every night. :p
And that's while she is loose in the field - no headcollar involved. :D
The trick is in giving her a slice of apple between each squirt of drugs...(you could also try mixing the trim with pureed apple in an oral syringe).
S :D
 
Top