Subi started Equioxx this weekend for his joint pain/arthritis and I was a having a horrible time figuring out how to get the damn pill down his throat.
For those of you who have seen Equioxx, the pill is TINY.
For those of you who have read my saga about Subi, you know he is PICKY and HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS.
Always suspicious. Always.
As a result, getting said pill into him was…difficult. In fact, I failed completely on Saturday.
You see, the lists of foods Subi does not approve of is probably longer than the foods of which he approves. I made the fatal mistake of sticking the Equioxx in a German Horse Muffin, but, as it turns out, Subi no longer eats German Horse Muffins. He finds that they are inedible. My husband tried to feed the pill muffin to him and it ended up in the mud. We thought about dumping it in his bucket, but figured that Batty or Jiminy would eat it instead. I’m pretty sure that German Horse Muffins were once poisoned by bute and now they are poisonous themselves… Subi only gets paste bute now… Thankfully I have volunteers in the form of Jiminy, Batty, (and Ranger if the first two let me sneak off the property with muffins) to finish off the poisonous muffins…
Full of himself. Idiot.
Defeated but not dead, I headed back out the next morning with peppermints and sticky hands. I decided to sandwich the Equioxx between two peppermints. When I couldn’t get that to work (they wouldn’t stick together, no Subi was involved), I added some Agave Nectar and made the entire thing a sticky mess. This pill would be sacrificed if this didn’t work. Then walked outside, fed him a plain peppermint (I should note, peppermints are our favorite), then stuffed the agave peppermint contraption in his mouth. SUCCESS! He looked at me like I was insane. We accept peppermints. We do not force peppermints into one’s mouth… But, I learned that Agave is acceptable to Subi… Go figure?
But, this mess wasn’t exactly conducive to daily pill giving practice so I set off to the grocery store (after a lesson on Ranger while still unable to breathe) and purchased ingredients for the pumpkin muffins I made last April. Except, I made multiple modifications from that version because it’s all about improvements. The version back in April was loosely based off of DIY Horse Ownership‘s pill hider treat recipe and based on whatever ingredients I had on hand… And this modification was based on those modifications and whatever other modifications I felt like making. So basically, when all was said and done, I more or less made up what I was doing? Because, why not?
And I finally purchased silicone mini muffin pans which made the process SO MUCH EASIER!
In the end, I made just under 7 dozen carrot molasses pumpkin muffins. Some had peppermints, some didn’t.
So. Many. Pumpkin. Muffins. Subi will sell his soul.
Subi will MURDER for these muffins. MURDER.
For a picky horse, he LOVES pumpkin. Who knew? Jiminy likes the muffins as well though would have preferred micro mini muffins that would better fit in his mouth. Batty, Mr. I WILL EAT EVERYTHING NO QUESTIONS ASKED (except for bananas and fig newtons) ate his, but without enthusiasm. He, evidently, isn’t the biggest fan of pumpkin. Lol.
Since then, the past 3 mornings he has eaten his pill inside his pumpkin muffin. This morning, Subi nearly took off my hand trying to grab his muffin. Evidently I was moving my hand too slowly…
What tricks do you use to pill a horse?
Cookies!!!!
Three Chestnuts 
Lol, the things we do. When Stampede needs previcox/equioxx I hide them in nickerdoodles. For some reason those are one of the few items he doesn’t become suspicious of despite hidden meds. The main rule is that I have to act natural about feeding them and feed several in succession. Special ponies!
I swear he’s suspicious of me even when I walk up to him before presenting a treat… And if he takes the treat, he usually finds it mid bite and then spits everything out in dramatic fashion. It doesn’t help that he chews every bite 30 times before swallowing… I bought these senior horse treats (manna pro senior snax) once and he took a bite, realized it was poison (no medication was involved), and sulked for about 8 hours… The reaction was as bad, if not worse, as the last time I managed to get bute in him via cookie… He bit the bute and had a temper tantrum… I’m not sure he ate dinner that night. Lol. He’s…special.
Glad Subi loves his homemade muffins. Picky horse. Mine have all been pigs and will eat anything in any form
You have normal horses.
I have yet to give Amber pumpkin to see if she likes it! She’s wary of treats, not really because of meds or anything but just because I never gave her any treats until she was 3 and then she didn’t get anything other than apples or carrots until she was 6 lol. She hates peppermints so that’s weird lol. Maybe here soon I’ll try pumpkin and cook it in something….
Well, Subi despises apples so… I tried pumpkin initially because I didn’t have applesauce and I had a can of pumpkin and thought it might be a decent substitute. Now that I think about it, I fed Hayley a lot of pumpkin too hoping it would help her. I’m just surprised SUBI likes it. Strange horse…
Haha he is strange! But hey if it works then just keep going lololol
Very creative! Glad you found something that works! I’m lucky I only have to pill my dog! lol
I should try those muffins! Irish gets previcox every morning (the cheap version of equivox). I cut into an apple or carrot piece, shove it in and he eats it no problem.
I hope he keeps on eating them. IF not Remus and Tate say send south. Speaking of arthritis etc Tate is lame today. Happy Thanksgiving!!
Oh Tater Tot… so far Subi is still obsessed. While we were blanketing last night, he was licking Erik in hopes he’d have more… Batty was the one getting blanketed 😂 FYI Jiminy got BREAKFAST this morning. A hot timothy pellet and beet pulp mash with chopped carrots. If you could have seen his face…
ohh Jiminy wont want to come South!! LOL Stay warm!! 🙂
When breakfast doesn’t arrive everyday he will! 😂
Happy Thanksgiving!🍁🦃
Very clever! Those silicone baking trays sound amazing, too.
I’m fortunate to not have picky horses so I can just toss their pills in their daily grain and be done with it. My dogs on the other hand…lol
My dogs are surprisingly easy, my lab in particular! Both love pill pockets., but my lab will eat pills out of your hand and I can stick pills down my other dogs throat pretty easily (except she got tired of it during her month and a half of multiple antibiotics plus pain pills post surgery so we discovery how much she loved pill pockets).
I’m super behind on my blog reading. I started reading this and I was going to comment that I have the perfect recipe to solve this, but you found it without me. The pill hider treats have been a huge help for me at times, though thankfully mine eat their previcox in their food now. If he stops liking the muffins, you can just slightly melt the mints on a lined baking sheet, pop the pill between two and let them cool and re-harden.