Dosing horse meds? Save Rx bottles!

Horse owners run through bundles of baggies, preparing and labeling equine medications and feed supplements. Why not save money (and the environment) by recycling containers we’re already using?

Suppose the large animal veterinarian prescribes once- or twice-daily doses of powdered or tableted methylsulfonyl-methane (MSM) or phenylbutazone (BUTE) for a horse, but the equine owner cannot be at the stables to administer all of the medication doses.

Empty prescription bottles make excellent receptacles for storing these doses in advance, so barn staffers can add the medicines to a horse’s grain at feeding times.

The pill bottles should be thoroughly washed and dried, and the original prescription labels need to be removed or covered. Ducttape works well for concealing the labels, if they are difficult to detach. And the bottles must be clearly marked with the horse’s name and dosage frequency (such as AM or PM).

The large-mouthed prescription bottles are easiest to use.

Traditional pill containers, often an opaque brown or blue, are simple to repurpose. Target’s new ClearRx bottles have tiny openings, so they are harder to manage. A funnel may be used, but many powders will tend to stick inside, making full dosing difficult.

What about larger medication and supplement doses?

Leftover lidded plastic containers, such as those in which lunch meats and deli salads are sold, make super serving-sized supplement storage options.

Essentially, any non-breakable plastic container with a tight-fitting top may be considered for this purpose, so long as it never contained anything potentially harmful to a horse and it has been completely cleaned before reuse.

Related Item/s:
45 smart ways to reuse prescription bottles

Image/s:

Horse Head graphic –

Classic Clip-Art

Target ClearRx prescription bottle

Creative Commons Licensing / Wikipedia Commons

Traditional prescription bottle

US CDC/US Government photo

Public domain

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