Horses are majestic creatures, but any horse owner will tell you that they can also be extremely stubborn and headstrong. Trying to give a horse its medicine is sometimes akin to chasing a six-year-old around the house with a teaspoon full of cough medicine. Except your six-year-old doesn’t weigh half a ton and have teeth that could easily take off a finger.
If you’ve ever seen a novice try to give a horse medication, you understand the importance of knowing how to properly administer medicine to a sick horse. Your veterinarian will likely give your horse an injection, but for home medicating, the method is most often pills. There are several different ways to easily administer pills to your horse, though no single method is fool proof or works for everyone. The best way to figure out which method is going to work for you is simple trial and error.
If you have a particularly cooperative horse you may want to try the whole-pill method, which may involve putting the pill as far back as you can in your horse’s mouth and holding his head in the air until you’re sure he’s swallowed it. This method works well with dogs, who have tiny heads and are easily overpowered, but it may not go over so well with your horse. You can also try to hide the whole pill in your horse’s food, but it is probable that he will discover and discard it.
The most popular method for administering pills to your equine friend is the “grind and hide” method. Using a mortar and pestle designated specifically for horse medication, grind the pill to a fine powder, making sure not to leave any large chunks. Then hide the powder in one of your horse’s favorite foods, preferably something liquid or sticky so that the medicine doesn’t fly all over the place when your horse exhales.
If your sick horse is appropriately suspicious of your generosity and refuses to eat his medicine-laced treats, there is one more method for administering his pills. Again, grind the pill with a mortar and pestle until it is a fine powder, then mix it with water and put it into a syringe that has an open catheter tip. Then you can open your horse’s mouth and easily squirt the medicine down his throat, holding his head up to make sure he’s swallowed.
Center Pet Pharmacy can help to provide you with the very best horse medications, as well as advice on the best ways to administer those medications so that your pet experiences as little stress as possible. When your pet is happy, we’re happy!
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