How to Make Your Horse LOVE Taking Oral Medications

At some point in your horse’s life they will have to take an oral medication

. Here’s how to make your horse LOVE taking his oral meds.

Whether it’s a dewormer, antibiotic, or anti-inflammatory like bute, your horse will have to take a medication orally at some point in his life.

What’s wrong with this?

Horses quickly learn that they HATE anything that comes in a tube.

Usually the medicines don’t taste great and your horse will begin tossing his head, backing up, and doing everything in his power to avoid the medicine at all costs.

Unless you’ve got a mini, your horse is stronger than you are and so you’ve created a battle of muscle, in which you will always lose.

Or, if your horse is polite, they’ll take the medicine, wad it up in their mouth, wait for you to turn your back and then spit it all over the dog, who is ALWAYS right underneath the horse.

I’ve even heard of people who have broken their nose when their horse went to toss their head.

So let’s avoid that fight altogether!

If you have a youngen’, start laying a foundation now of loving his oral meds.

If you have an older horse, you might just rock his world when the next batch of meds suddenly is delicious!

How to Make Your Horse Love his Oral Meds

All you need is an empty syringe you can get from your vet or a vet supply store, or even an empty dewormer tube if you’ve got it, and appelsauce!

If you use a dewormer tube, clean it out really well.

Simply fill your tube with applesauce and squirt some into your hand.

Let your horse eat the applesauce from your hand.

Eventually, you’ll keep the syringe closer and closer to your hand and your horse’s mouth.

Eventually you’ll be able to squirt the applesauce directly into his mouth with the syringe.

I recommend practicing this once a week to start and then at least once a month.

Or replace your daily treats with syringe applesauce!

Even if your vet has given you pill medications, you can always grind them into powder with a mortar and pestle or a coffee bean grinder and mix that in with the applesauce.