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I just toss them in.
When I was grinding them, I used this:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/As-Seen-on...e-Set/15707852
The small cup with teh flat blade attachment would pulverize 12 pills in seconds, with literally the tap of my finger. I already had this unit because I make smoothies every morning, but I wouldn't spend $50 on this just to crush horse pills ;)
My extremely picky horse actually eats the whole 150 mg pills with no fuss vs. the crushed 300 mg pills which was a daily struggle to get him to finish. I also started adding soaked alfalfa cubes to his grain on a COTH recommendation (thanks SFH!) and that helped with his other powdered meds. Give the bucket a few shakes so the pills are a little mixed in and dump in his bucket. Previously I was adding this and that and drizzling molasses on what he left, crying at the dollar bills I imagined at the bottom of his feed bucket...
Glad I could help! My mare is generally SUPER picky, but the alfalfa mash hides a lot from her until its too late and they're down the pipe!
She is so picky though, that she doesn't like "just" alfalfa...if I am not feeding her a ration balancer, I have to add a few cups of hay stretcher pellets to the mash. She just doesn't seem to like the straight alfalfa taste. *shrug* Hay stretcher pellets are cheap enough to add, if it gets her to eat the rest of the mash, its worth adding I suppose!
I'm glad I just called my vet. After looking at the calculations posted on here, I looked at pricing with Walmart, Sam's Club, Smartpak, Allivet, DrsFosterSmith, and Costco, and the Costco local to my zipcode didn't turn up anything. In the dosing required for my big grumpy's weight, dosing via Sam's Club was about the same as Smartpak, and Walmart was looking like it'd be even more. AlliVet was $70, and DrsFosterSmith had the cheapest aside from the vet at $20 per 250 ct bottle of 300 mg pills. Calling my vet for my dogs and cats turned up a 300mg pills/250 ct. bottle for $18, so while not as cheap as the $10 bottle mentioned in an earlier comment, it's still cheaper than anything else I was able to turn up. For those that are buying 250 ct bottles of the 300 mg pills, check out DrsFosterSmith :) They have free shipping over $49 and any vet can call it in.
So I have another question. I have successfully treated this gelding before on Omeprazole, but when I took him off of it, he went back to being cranky, clearly indicating he needs a maintenance dose. I know how much his maintenance dose of Omeprazole was, but what would a maintenance dose of Ranitidine amount to once I get his tummy back under control? With 8 hour effectiveness, I'm guessing a maintenance dose of it would still need to be given no less than twice a day. If 3600 mg is treatment dosing, is half of that a maintenance dose? What works for your horses? This guy is an asshole to strangers if he's not on something.
If a high dose of omeprazole was stopped abruptly, maybe what is needed is slow tapering rather than sudden interruption of this drug. Stopping full-dose omeprazole suddenly after a prolonged period (I'd say a month or more) is asking for trouble WRT rebound hypersecretion of acid.Quote:
I have successfully treated this gelding before on Omeprazole, but when I took him off of it, he went back to being cranky, clearly indicating he needs a maintenance dose.
I use a Food Network herb/coffee grinder (from Kohl's)--was $5--looks kind of like those "Magic Bullet" food processor things. Anyways, it has lasted me 2-3 years grinding Ranitidine w/ no problems at all :) I do wash it when the screw cap part gets gunky.
http://www.kohls.com/kohlsStore/PRD~...crosssell=true
ETA---whoops. Sorry for the tease---I just saw on the link that it's "no longer available." But I'm sure something similar would work.
Nope, he was tapered off very gradually over 6 weeks. Full to 2/3 to 1/2 to 1/3 to 1/4 dose, and within two days of coming off of it, he went back to being cranky. I'm pretty aware that tapering is needed, and have successfully treated another horse that didn't have reoccurrence, but I'm of the opinion that this one will require a maintenance dose indefinitely.Quote:
Originally Posted by deltawave
This is what I have (http://www.ebay.com/itm/HEAVYDUTY-PI...item1e7534a89f), and it's a pain in the butt, and the one on Smartpak looks similar. My vet will have the meds for him by Friday, so I'm going to see how he does with them being dissolved into his mash, but if that doesn't work I'll need to grind it to powder. He does powder stuff pretty well nowadays, taking both his joint supp and his biotin supp that way. I may need to take a stroll through Kohl's, so thanks for the suggestion!
According to this site: http://equimed.com/drugs-and-medicat...ne?weight=1000
The treatment is 10, 300 mg tablets, three times daily.
Maybe the "prevention" or maintenance dose of the same, 10 pills, but only twice daily, would work?
That is what I do---the 3000mg BID. My horse was scoped when he presented "ulcery" symptoms ~5 years ago and it was negative. Vet put him on twice daily Ranitidine of that dose and he improved remarkably. I did do a month of the 3x a day Ranitidine when I felt he was acting "funny" due to decreased turnout due to weather earlier this year, and I do think it helped. But I went back to the 2x a day after that and he is great. I really think it depends on your horse and their symptoms/diagnosis.Quote:
Originally Posted by SuckerForHorses
I also found that he is much better on his low starch extruded feed than what he was on before. It used to be that when I missed a week of the Ranitidine (due to my laziness of grinding) he would starting "presenting" symptoms. Now if I miss doses like that nothing happens. I now begin to wonder if he even needs it!
If you discontinue the dosing, and he seems fine, I would not keep dosing.
I also do BID 3000 - 3600 mg when she seems ulcery, but I stop after a few weeks and see what happens. So far, so good.
I might have missed it - how long was he on the "cure" dose? I've heard of some who needed a full 60 days of treatment for a full cure.Quote:
Originally Posted by ClassynIvansMom