As part of the cycle of abscesses and cellulitis that Freedom has experienced this fall I’ve had to get creative about making his meds — antibiotics, specifically — palatable. Sure, I could dose him with a syringe but my experience has been that is a technique that works really well for 2-3 days and then you have a 1300 pound tantrum on your hands. It’s amazing how tall a horse can become when he knows that you are about to stick a syringe in his mouth.

I prefer to find a way to make the meds taste good enough that he doesn’t mind eating them in his food. SMZs dissolve easily in water and for awhile Freedom would eat them if I just mixed them in his food.

But it didn’t last. After a couple of days he started to turn his nose up at his grain.

First, I tried adding peppermints. This worked pretty well. Freedom LOVES peppermints. But they take awhile to dissolve in water and I no longer have a spare coffee grinder to

pulverize them.

So I tried Kool Aid. Rather than “contaminate” the grain and meds by adding them directly to his dinner, I offered Freedom and his barn-mate, Willow, a taste test.

Surprisingly, Willow, who normally will eat just about anything (she always wants to see if my phone is edible) took great offense at the taste.

Freedom loved it. He lapped it right off the palm of my hand. A scoop of Kool-Aid in his grain and he eats every last grain of his feed.