Cowmomma's Cupboard

The recent deaths of elite polo horses due to medication error makes all of us that work with animals cringe.  If you work with livestock, you typically use medications and supplements in the course of caring for your beloved animals and we all worry about this kind of mistake occurring.  There are practices that can help make sure that this never happens at your farm.

We ask our vetrinarian about any supplement or medication we consider for our herd.  She is not always familiar with alternative therapies but this is a good place to start.  We verify dosages and potential side effects with her.  We then do a review of the agricultural literature for information about the practices again looking for evidence for and against the intervention and about the use protocols.

Everything we administer systemically we get either from the vet or a commercial preparer.  We calculate the dosages of all medications for the animals based upon prescribing guidelines even if they have been prepared by the vet or pharmacy to try to make sure no error has been made.

We do most all of our own administration but we have two people verify dosage, drawup and then have a system of placing anything to be given to an animal in a bag with it's name on it when we head to the pasture.  All syringes are marked with the medication contained.

Prior to administration again, dosage, administration recommendations, animal are all reviewed for match.  Then we give the vaccine or medication.  Now, on a larger scale, this is not all practical if using a dosing gun, but we do recommend a review of the supplement, routes to be given, side effects, etc prior to use by two people, then verification of dose for each animal, usually based upon weight or age before administration. When mass immunizing or medicating we do one medication at a time.

It does take a bit more time to do the double checking, but better safe then sorry. We do use a slapshot for our parenteral medications and vaccines and that makes shots even for our high strung cattle less stressful for all of us. Our hearts go out to the players, owners and fans who lost thse beautiful horses this week.