10/08/2020
Hints for administering herbs to animals:
Getting the herbs into the animal can be easy, or it can be difficult at first. I have formulated the herbs to taste as good as I can, but still, sometimes animals and be weary of new things. Be patient, eventually your animal will probably love the herbs and lick their bowls clean (mine do).
Please keep in mind that everybody is a different, so different things work for different animals. The main thing is getting animal in ingest the herbs, and it really doesn't matter how you end up doing it.
First you can just try sprinkling a small amount it on their grain/food. Try just a small amount at a time to let them get used to it and work up to a full dose.
If you feel it would help to have the herbs actually stick to the grain, try this trick that a customer sent me:
Pour 1.5 TBSP of oil onto 1.5 cups of dry goat feed. Mix. Add
1 TBSP of Formula. Mix. Oil makes the Formula stick to goat feed. Give to goat.
If you don't feed individually, making the herbs a treat is a good idea.
Dosage Balls usually work well:
Herbal Dosage Balls For Livestock:
Mix together:
1/2 cup (8 Tablespoons) Worm Formula
1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons) powdered Slippery Elm Bark (Slippery elm acts as a binding agent to hold the herb mixture together (it also tastes good). When I developed this recipe Slippery Elm was not as expensive as it is now. While I still think it is the best "binder" you can try other types of flour
or even omit the flour all together. Whatever works for you)
Add:
1/4 cup Honey or Molasses
With your fingers (or in a food processor), mix and kneed into a dough. Break into 16 even pieces, shape into balls and then roll the balls in a little bit of Slippery Elm powder just to coat. Each ball equals a 1/2 Tablespoon dose. Offer an herbal dosage ball to the animal first, and he may eat it right out of your hand. If he won't, shove it in his mouth. Often, the animal realizes the balls taste good and want more. If he spits it out,
just shove further back in the mouth next time. (For goat kids, or other smaller animals, I break the balls into smaller pieces to administer.)
One customer told me they use home-pressed apple juice instead of water to help mix up the the dosage balls.
Herbal Dosage Balls For Dogs (works for goats as well)
Mix together:
1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons) Worm Formula
2 Tablespoons whole wheat flour (or any type of flour you wish to use)
Add:
1/4 - 1/3 cup Peanut Butter
With your fingers, mix and kneed into a dough. Break into 12 even pieces, shape into balls and then roll the balls in a little bit of whole wheat flour just to coat. Each ball equals a 1 tsp. dose. Offer an herbal dosage ball to the dog first, and he may eat it right out of your hand. If he won't, shove it in his mouth. Often, the dog realizes the balls taste good and want more. If he spits it out, just shove further back in the mouth next
time.
Here are some more tips customers have sent me that worked for them:
- Mix the herbs with molasses (or honey)
and spread it on crackers (Wheat Thins and Triscuits) and the place another crack on top making a herb sandwich and her goats would gobble them up thinking they were the best treat.
- "We got our doelings to eat the dose balls, by flattening smaller dose balls between 2 elm leaves, a "sandwich"."
- "My goats love raisins, so I put some of them in the container with the dosage balls, after letting them mingle together I pulled out their doses for the day and some extra raisins then I smashed the raisins into the wormer balls and SUCCESS!"
- Make a drench. 1 part herbs 1 part molasses 1-2 parts water and gave each of their sheep 30 cc of the mix. (Sheep dose)
- "I decided to mix it with 3 tsp Gatorade. It's magical! They think the syringes contain a treat. No more struggles and one person can do it alone."
-Mix with applesauce. this person have many windfall apple, so used these to make applesauce for her goats.
