Trouble worming my horse-- ideas?

You've got your work cut out for you. I've worked with many MANY horses who hate anything in their mouth and fight you like crazy. Have suffered several mild shoulder dislocations, too.

I find that in most cases for training, it's best to only have a halter with no lead rope. You're not going to administer anything to her: you're just going to get her to accept the tube in her mouth without drama.

Standing on her right if you're right handed, with your left hand on her halter, , back of your hand against her right nostril, syringe in right hand. Run your right hand, with your skin touching hers, up against her neck, her shoulder, her face, her jowl, her mandible, her jaw, and her muzzle. While holding the syringe, gently put your fingers in her mouth, then out again quickly. Keep the syringe in your right hand, but only touch her with your skin, not the syringe.

Now, here's where a trainer comes in handy, because if she's too violent, you may need to hold on by using a chain over her nose instead of her left hand in the noseband of the halter. You're still on her right side. Keep a firm tension on the chain and don't let links slip through the rings of the halter. You want it snug, but not punishing. Repeat with the rubbing the neck/ shoulder/ face as before. Go slowly, and if she's showing tension, back off and return to the spot where she'll be quiet.

However, if she's being hysterical, I'd chock her down HARD twice. She can honestly tell me she's scared, but no dangerous hysterics and flinging ones self about.

Take your time over the course of weeks and months. Get her used to popping your fingers mostly, and the syringe occasionally, into her mouth. Be very careful not to scrape her gums or mouth tissue. Never stab at her with the tip of the syringe first. It's cold and tastes funny. Play with her muzzle while your'e grooming her, or if you're in the pasture visiting. You're systematically desensitizing her to you putting things between her lips.

If you've done your home work, you should be able to sneak an actual dose of dewormer in easily enough. Stick to the dewormers with thin tubes like Quest or Equimaxx. The thick ones like Safegard, or Strongid are tougher to control and could scrape her.

Learn to put the medicine very far back on her tongue. Part of the protest is because this stuff tastes gawdawful. Less tastebuds are located further back on the tongue.

Has a vet tried to coach you on tricks to get oral meds in?

Take a syringe. Fill it with sugar water or something your horse likes. Put that syringe in the horse's mouth, from the RIGHT SIDE. Horses often are sour on one side about deworming but good on the other because they don't have bad association from that side.

The horse won't hate the taste but will still have had a tube in his mouth. Do this a couple times a week. When it's deworming time, use the deworming tube. Your horse will not have expected the bad taste, so may be a bit bad about the syringe next time, but in a couple days, give applesauce through the syringe, or whatever she likes. Again, do this a couple times a week.

Eventually you can switch sides sometimes. Again, it might be a bit of a fight but shouldn't be as horrible as it used to be.

If this does not work, find a natural horsemanship trainer in your area and work with him or her for a week or two. A NH trainer I took a clinic from... one of the clients had a seemingly impossible to deworm horse, and within half an hour (after round pen and basic ground work) he took the dewormer no problem, and took a few more syringes of water and such.

Good luck!

ADD:

I don't like deworming bits. If you want to use one, for the love of god, don't rely on it. Horses like to associate things, and she may associate the bit with a yucky taste, and may become reluctant to take the bit. I've seen it happen!

It's really important to be able to give a horse tube meds without treats.

Sometimes a horse will need to be medicated and will have no appetite for anything. What do you do then?

Further, putting it in a treat teaches the horse he cannot trust you.

90% of tube meds can be administered between the teeth and cheek. They do not need to be squirted on the tongue. The horse objects to the tube between his teeth, the pointy end going into the roof of his mouth, the horrible taste on his tongue. It's an invasion, and he doesn't like it at all.

So quietly insert the syringe at the corner of his mouth, between cheek and teeth, and inject it. No fight to open his mouth. No sudden foul taste on his tongue. Just a quick quiet injection and then hold his head up if necessary. He can't get it out, it will go down.

Most horses tolerate this immediately; for those that do not i do recommend the training described by the other answerers (not the one with the ropes, though). When you have a fighter like yours and need to administer something now, today, immediately, then I recommend a twitch or a lip shank. These are not cruel if done correctly; the pressure on the upper lip stimulates the nerves stimulated by grazing and produce endorphins in the brain, which is pleasurable to them (this is also why they crib and chew wood). Put the twitch on, wait till the horse calms. then put the tube in as above and inject the meds. Hold the horse by the twitch if necessary.

I'm glad you're addressing this issue now, before she needs life saving meds and you can't administer them. Good Luck with her.

Well she is not going to associate the trotting on the lunge for 40 minutes with worming - and that in itself is cruel since you should never exercise a horse for that long on the lunge anyway, even an event fit horse can only manage about 20 -25 minutes. It is far too strenuous going round in small circles on the joints, muscles and tendons.

There are two ways to go about this. Either cut a hole in a nice big apple and push "inject" the paste into that and then smother that with mollasses or honey and offer that to her.

Or to have someone hold her for you while you stand on a kickstep or something similar, back her into a corner and approach her with the syringe of meds in your left hand and up your arm. Stroke her for a few minutes until she is calm, stroke her face and then come down near her mouth, stick a finger in to the side of her mouth and press on her tongue. She will open her mouth and you should be able to slide the syringe in and discharge the contents, though it is not an easy thing to do which is why I never liked using syringes in the first place - they were always too stiff.

There is nothing to say that granules or powders are any less effective nor do you have to buy in bulk. Just go to your saddlers or feed merchants and get just a few packets at once. Mix them into a small amount (say a couple of handfuls) of her normal feed, some bran and add some pieces of apple (or apple sauce) and mollasses and offer that to her in a hand held bowl to see that she eats it all up, and then give her the rest of her feed as normal.

There is really no point in fighting her. She only gets stressed. She probably has had someone in the past being less than gentle with her, possibly hurting her tongue in the process. I would try the granules way.

This is going to sound weird but it works for my gelding. Take a damp towel or rag, something about the size of a tea towel and place it over the nose. Kind of stick it under the halter nose band to help keep it in place. Then administer the wormer from under the towel. I got the idea from the Tellington Touch book by Linda Tellington-Jones. He still wasnt overly impressed but he did stand there and did not throw his head around to avoid it. Granted he does not get as upset about the wormer as yours.

She may not let you get that contraption in her mouth!

I try to tong train horses or ponies that I keep long enough to have to worm often.

If you get some of those cotton roper gloves and reach in the side of her mough and hold her toung and when she is quiet turn it loose and give her treats, a lot of them will let you and then when it is worm time just pull the toung out and put the meds behind the lump of the toung and they can't spit it out like they can if you just shoot it into the mouth.

Get a deworming bit. My gelding is the same way. He saw a tube in my hand that I had for my other gelding and he wouldn't come anywhere near me. The only other way to get paste in his mouth is to grab his tongue and hold it out the side of his mouth, but even getting his tongue is hard. So instead I just use a deworming bit with him. It makes life much easier.

When they are like this I agree to using the syringe between cheek and teeth. (I do that anyway)

It is very easy to stop.

Get a thickish blanket and throw that over the horse's head so it cannot see. Stand facing the same way as the horse hand nearest horse under its jaw and holding the nose other inserts wormer.

I don't think any horse will stand for something like that, period. It all else fails I know it's more expensive but have a vet do it, it's proably better dewormer anyway. I just have the vet out twice a year to tube worm the horses and get it done effectively.

They have this bit like thing that you put in her mouth, squirt the wormer in the side and she can't spit it out. Here is a link for one: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display...

Hope this helps!