A Few Tips and Tricks for Giving Oral Medications to Your Horse

Stephanie shares some tips and tricks she learned recently while trying to medicate her off-track Thoroughbred, Happy.
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A Few Tips and Tricks for Giving Oral Medications to Your Horse
Here are the tools I used at one point or another during three-plus weeks of managing my horse’s illness under veterinarians’ recommendations/supervision. Not shown: Banamine and RiteTrac. | Photo: Stephanie L. Church/The Horse

Things I learned when I might have been my horse’s least favorite person.

Don’t ever look in the mirror after a late-night or early morning run to the barn to medicate your horse.

That’s what I did shortly after 12:30 a.m. a few weeks ago, when I returned from the barn after giving Happy, my off-Track Thoroughbred, three 60-mL syringes of milk of magnesia.

Yes, the laxative

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Written by:

Stephanie L. Church, Editorial Director, grew up riding and caring for her family’s horses in Central Virginia and received a B.A. in journalism and equestrian studies from Averett University. She joined The Horse in 1999 and has led the editorial team since 2010. A 4-H and Pony Club graduate, she enjoys dressage, eventing, and trail riding with her former graded-stakes-winning Thoroughbred gelding, It Happened Again (“Happy”). Stephanie and Happy are based in Lexington, Kentucky.

2 Responses

  1. It seems a solution for the hassle of oral administration would be to make medications that taste good. Apparently this is not done. Any thoughts as to why? I’d love to get a flavored Banamine.

  2. What works for me is to dunk the syringe in a jar of molasses and let them get use to that and then squirt the med in on about the third time. Works like a charm!

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