WHILE giving a horse its medication in a feed or via an oral paste is a convenient and economical option for horse owners, experience shows that it is frequently prone to error. The horse either refuses all or part of the medicated feed, wastes it by scattering it on the stable floor or, alternatively, shows great resentment to receiving it via an oral paste.
When a vet supplies some medication to put in a horse's feed, he or she makes several assumptions - that it will be mixed thoroughly with a feed the horse is known to like, that the horse's keeper will ensure that the horse eats all of each dose in one sitting with little or no waste, that the keeper will continue to monitor how completely the horse eats that feed over the course of treatment, and that they will be vigilant for any adverse effects (such as diarrhoea).
“Refusal of medicated feed tends to take two forms:
