Bigger Batch Issues w/ Medicated Food

Making a big batch is a little bit more difficult because mixing the confectioners glaze/medicine mix have to be done evenly so it really kind of takes two people. One person to drizzle and one person to stir.

*Note: this document is intended to convey “how I do it“ and has nothing to do with recommendations, prescriptions, or instructions to you. If you think so, you are mistaken.

This batch called for roughly 700 mg of medicine per pound of food based on a 3% feeding rate and I put in 1500 total. It’s 2 pounds of food. If I had it to do over again, I would have made this with 2000 mg to account for some of the loss of medication during the crushing process.

I used the pineapple flavor, but I don’t dare taste it LOL. This batch is heading to a breeder with whom I have a legitimate, valid client patient relationship, on a prescription basis.

If it works as well as we hope in the group of fish he is working with, I will no longer be his prescriber, and he will be able to go into mass production on his own (not for sale so don’t ask) buying antibiotics as freely as he wants from online ‘pet’ pharmacies, and with a VCPR with one of the traveling veterinary shot-clinic outfits. My guess is he will be able to produce several tons a year and save thousands of non-food fish.

As I have mentioned before, he needs to find a veterinarian who is immune to regulation, and a pharmacy to buy from that is immune to regulation as well.  As a legitimate brick and mortar veterinarian, I can only prescribe for fish that I have laid eyes on and have the ability to revisit. Weekend shot clinic vets can do whatever they want as, by the time anyone from regulatory arrives, the bearded lady has been loaded up, the big top has been broken down and  all they find is a field with peanut shells add a little rubber clown nose to identify the ”veterinarian” by. Like a useless, squeaky red fingerprint.

Not to mention the fact that it is a  technical and logistical  stretch for me to make a mere 2 pounds of food LOL. Let alone 2000.

Above, 2 pounds of food in a pail large enough to allow it to be stirred.

Above, confectioners glaze must be shaken extremely well.
In the following picture, I am adding a very fine powder to the confectioners glaze, care must be taken in many instances not to inhale any of the dust as some of them could hurt me..

Above, I had to eyeball how much confectioners glaze to use and then mix the intended remedy into the confectioners glaze stirring well. The finer that I can grind the medicant, the better I do, I’m wondering whether it would be good to blend the confectioners glaze with the medications in a Nutri bullet.

Stir and drizzle!

As I mentioned in the previous article on this, I have found that spreading the glazed food on wax paper is the best way to handle it and this time was no exception.

 

 

Dr Erik Johnson is a Marietta, Georgia Veterinarian with a practice in small animal medicine. He graduated from University of Georgia with his Doctorate in 1991. Dr Johnson is the author of several texts on Koi and Pond Fish Health and Disease as well as numerous articles on dog and cat health topics.