Problem feeding Bute to my poor injured horse - help urgently needed

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treacle_beastie

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Ok so yesterday my horse bolted whilst long reining in the woods and went through a very large sticky bush which has resulted in her suffering some fairly major gashes on her underside - one of which has been stapled up, the others have been left open to drain though they are very big and rather deep - ouch. The problem is is she is very fussy with what goes in her dinner and she is refusing to eat the bute. She has hasnt eaten any of it despite me putting molasses in it. I tried to feed it to her inside and apple but she spat it all out and now wont eat apples!

What else can I try? I was thinking of mixing it in some black treacle and smearing it on an apple or carrot - will this work having tried the previous options. Or putting it in just speedibeet?

help -she really needs to get this in her! One so she is less pain and two so I can clean her wounds...
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Disolve in water and syringe into the back of her mouth.. Alternatively get in touch with vet and ask if you can go and pick some Danilon up.. Its sugar coated and they eat it much better.

Lou x
 
The 2 methods that have worked for me have been

For a sick horse not eating - mix with apple juice & syringe in
For a fussy horse - marmite sarnie with LOTS of marmite
 
Sugar beet tends to work with a lot IME, or anything soaked - my friend's very fussy and suspicious horse refused everything that even smelt of bute or danilon until I gave her some of my mare's Allen & Page Fast Fibre (soaked fibre pellets) to put it in. He ate up every last scrap and licked the bowl!
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We tend to mix bute into a handful of beet at work whenever we have to feed it, and it normally works a treat.
I used to share a very very fussy horse who wouldn't eat anything other than her usual rations, or polos. She was suspicious of carrots and apples when hand-fed! We had to syringe everything "bad" down her and she was a nightmare, spitting it out etc. She could even do a fake swallow to make you think she'd swalloed whatever you'd given her, then she'd spit it out. I used to spend five minutes with her head resting on my shoulder, massaging her throat, to make her swallow things like bute and wormers. She has to swallow some time
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Can you worm her easilyenough? If so, I'd ask your vet for the paste form in a syringe.
Alternatively, apple sauce/ yoghurt / marmite sarnies / anything with a strong flavour...
MIne eats his with plenty of speedibeet in his food.
 
Mine would only take her bute when we mixed it with chocolate sauce (the kind you put on Ice cream) We mixed it in a yoghurt pot then put the mixture in the feed. She wolfed it down then.
 
There is a taste less Bute which vets can get it's a little bit more expensive,if all else fails ask your vet good luck we had similar problems with antibiotics last year ended up using a pot of jam and brown bread then molasses just to hide the taste.
 
Ok i've just tried speedibeet with carrots in - she picked out the carrots, then apples and black treacle - she reluctantly ate the apple after the earlier problem and I'm not really sure what she makes of black treacle (and thats her name!). She is now suspicious of her food altogether and has only just started eating the haylage now the others are back in. She just stays glued in one spot in her stable. when I got her out tonight she could hardly move but I managed to coax her out to pick at a bit of grass...poor girlie..i wish she could just understnad that it will be a lot better if she ate the bute! On top of this I cant wash her wounds now - i cant even look at them without a hoof coming my way - I managed to squirt some hibbiscrub at them but thats the best I can do. I will phone the vet tomorrow and book them in for the revisit and get some more advice..do you think she will let me help her get better soon?
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I jad to dissolve the bute in hot water and a big teaspoon of honey which worked or apple sauce is a good one my vet suggested to me toffee yoghurt but i didnot try that
 
I'd twitch her to clean the wounds up if shes not keen on you looking - its better to twitch her and get them cleaned up properly.

Mine eat bute, but we have used apple juice, honey and treacle, in feeds. Jam sandwiches with worming powders. Warm treacle/honey in warm water, dissolve the powder then syringe it down.
 
Get to a chemist tomorrow and ask for the biggest syringe they have (I think they are about £1.50) then get someone with a very sharp knife to carefully slice off the end so you end up with a wide tube containing a plunger. Pull plunger right back and drop in a teaspoon or so of apple sauce, then tip in the bute, add a couple of drips of water and then top off with another spoonfull of apple sauce. Syringe up into the back of the mouth.

I have now perfected this technique on one of my horses and can now not only get him to swallow small sachets of bute/danillon but also those huge great things of Trimed antibiotics!

The apple sauce hits the tastebuds before the drugs can get spat down to the front of the mouth.
 
Another good one is to mix the bute with icing sugar - just mix it with water, mix in the bute and syringe in. Or put it in a piece in treacle
 
http://www.easywormer.com/
makes it easier to do singlehanded.

meanwhile, icing sugar, peppermint essence and make peppermint creams., stir the bute into some of the mix and shape into 'sweets' Keep them well labelled and clear of any children though!
 
Peppermint cordial, or how about apple juice/cider (not too much)!! Or just what you have to hand - a packet of polos dissolved in a small ammount of boiling water or some dried mint dissolved and infused in hot water. Don't give too much feed to mix the powder into or the horse will have lost interest before he gets enough medicine in him. And like previous posters have said, Danillon is the much preferred medicine by equines. You could also try grating carrot or apple or pitted dates into a small feed with the medicine mixed in. Black treacle like you say is a good one, but not all like that - my horse hates treacle and molasses and hates the horselick things too - he is very weird.
 
Get a big syringe, dissolve the bute (it won't fully dissolve) in some water and syringe it down her throat. It's the only thing i've ever found to work. E with Abs has a really good contraption for syringing wormer into horses that won't take it, see if she will lend you that. You'll need a syringe though.

Hope she's ok. What did she bolt at?
 
I have 2 methods

1. Syringe - keep your old wormer syringes and reuse them as they have a big 'hole' and are more chew proof than injection syringes.

2. Pipe - for the horse that spits back the syringe method, get 100mm copper pipe and bend one end up (helps if someone has a plummer kit!). Tip bute in the end and huff into mouth. Expect very hurt look from the horse and those on long term bute to occasionally huff back (wash your mouth out as bute makes humans ill.....)
 
This morning was horrendous - I dissolved it in some treacle/water and put it in her mouth only to find the bute had plugged up the end and I couldnt work the plunger - i took it out and fixed it and then had the drama of trying to get the syringe near her head! Eventually managed by grabbing her nose and kind of hung on until she stopped threashing her head around but she managed to bite my fingers
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. Tonight was a lot easier as I got one of the other liveries to hold her in her dually and it went straight down! Hope this will work from now on - failing that the vet is coming tomorrow so she can give me the alternative! Apple sauce didnt work, nor did mints or small amount of feed with all things nice in! She decided that tonight her feed wasnt laced with poison - only pony nuts and she ate up her dinner (no bute in it though
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). She looks a lot better in herself for the painkillers though so all good.

Chestnut cob - it was a deer in the woody bit not far from the yard but it was windy and they were shooting and hunting nearby so cant blame her - she gave me a warning 'squeal' before she ran into the tree got all tangeled up so I had to let go and then just legged it - right through the branches. Can safely say I am never going out on my own and never long reining out of the yard ever again!!

Thanks for all your replies though you've all been very helpful!
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put it in treacle and then put that in a syringe, and right in the back of its mouth, the treacle sticks so they shouldnt get it out, worked with our very fussy mare
 
Poor Treacle, give her a big get well cuddle from Monts! I think he still loves her, he isn't interested in any of the mares at the new yard despite them trying their hardest!

Best thing to do is test the plunger before - I dissolve the bute in water, mix it up and syringe up. Then push a bit back out into the remaining water to make sure it's working (and that you don't lose any bute), and then syringe it down her throat.
 
i had the same problem with my old horse. He was 17hh and if he didnt want it...there was no way u could reach when he put his head up :P
Danilon is brilliant and we always found it worked everytime. If not get a good size syringe and try watering it down and add peppermint essence to hide the taste
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Good luck x
 
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