Please note that I have moved my blog to natural horses health.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
Treating a Grieving and Depressed Horse Naturally
Some years ago, I took on a horse in retirement. Charlie was a companion for my mare. His previous people were moving across the country and didn’t have the opportunity to take their horses with them. This meant not only a change of people for Charlie, but also the loss of his companion of many years.
Humans do this all the time to their animals, without a second thought. We can’t hear what they say, in language, so assume they are coping. How ignorant we really are.
Charlie pined the loss of his companion. He was very close to him. He stood at the gate whinnying a lot. He spent a lot of the time with his head hanging down. In effect he was grieving and was becoming depressed.
This was before my homeopathic days, and I was at a loss to the best course of action. Typically, as is so common in humans, when the task looms too large, we ignore it, hoping it will go away.
Of course it didn’t.
At this time, I only had access to a poor grazing paddock, so had to feed the horses a lot of hay. I was a little concerned about the lack of green food stuffs in the summer. (Why do we focus more on the material/physical side of things, rather than the emotional?)
In retrospect, this concern is unfounded. Horses are adaptable animals. They can cope with poor quality hay for a season, as long as they have the bulk. Wild horses roam in areas where there may be little grazing in the hot dry summers or cold winters.
Charlie had no work and my mare had little work. So there was no need to worry about the quality of food. People often care too much, feed their animals too much. Although this is shows a caring attitude, it can be counterproductive, as I was to discover.
Lucerne hay is available all year round and is green. So I started to supplement my horses diet with this. Very quickly, Charlie started to develop fluid filled sacs at various parts of his body. These are termed oedemas or edemas.
At first I didn’t make the connection. But as Charlie’s health started to deteriorate, I had to think hard about any changes in his life, to account for this.
Eventually, I worked it out and stopped the lucerne. Whereupon Charlie’s oedemas completely disappeared.
However, the next summer, having forgotton the issue with the lucerne, I was back feeding it to them again. This time, Charlie didn’t recover.
My research lead me to learn that lucerne is one of the most pesticide sprayed crops there is. You think you’re feeding a quality food, but the chemical load is huge. My healthier mare was able to withstand it. But compromised and grieving Charlie wasn’t.
Later, when I discovered homoepathy and became a practitioner, I could easily see the connection of grieving the loss of a loved one with oedemas, in a particular homoeopathic medicine. To an outsider, there is no connection. To a homeopath, it is sweet news. As there are few medicines with this combination, it narrows down our selection.
The motto of this story is that when the going gets tough, call in a homeopath. Homeopaths think very differently from most health professionals. The odder the story, the better we can make a good prescription. Bare your soul, however weird it sounds. We will not send you to the funny farm!
I offer Skype consultations worldwide for both people and animals.
Humans do this all the time to their animals, without a second thought. We can’t hear what they say, in language, so assume they are coping. How ignorant we really are.
Charlie pined the loss of his companion. He was very close to him. He stood at the gate whinnying a lot. He spent a lot of the time with his head hanging down. In effect he was grieving and was becoming depressed.
This was before my homeopathic days, and I was at a loss to the best course of action. Typically, as is so common in humans, when the task looms too large, we ignore it, hoping it will go away.
Of course it didn’t.
At this time, I only had access to a poor grazing paddock, so had to feed the horses a lot of hay. I was a little concerned about the lack of green food stuffs in the summer. (Why do we focus more on the material/physical side of things, rather than the emotional?)
In retrospect, this concern is unfounded. Horses are adaptable animals. They can cope with poor quality hay for a season, as long as they have the bulk. Wild horses roam in areas where there may be little grazing in the hot dry summers or cold winters.
Charlie had no work and my mare had little work. So there was no need to worry about the quality of food. People often care too much, feed their animals too much. Although this is shows a caring attitude, it can be counterproductive, as I was to discover.
Lucerne hay is available all year round and is green. So I started to supplement my horses diet with this. Very quickly, Charlie started to develop fluid filled sacs at various parts of his body. These are termed oedemas or edemas.
At first I didn’t make the connection. But as Charlie’s health started to deteriorate, I had to think hard about any changes in his life, to account for this.
Eventually, I worked it out and stopped the lucerne. Whereupon Charlie’s oedemas completely disappeared.
However, the next summer, having forgotton the issue with the lucerne, I was back feeding it to them again. This time, Charlie didn’t recover.
My research lead me to learn that lucerne is one of the most pesticide sprayed crops there is. You think you’re feeding a quality food, but the chemical load is huge. My healthier mare was able to withstand it. But compromised and grieving Charlie wasn’t.
Later, when I discovered homoepathy and became a practitioner, I could easily see the connection of grieving the loss of a loved one with oedemas, in a particular homoeopathic medicine. To an outsider, there is no connection. To a homeopath, it is sweet news. As there are few medicines with this combination, it narrows down our selection.
The motto of this story is that when the going gets tough, call in a homeopath. Homeopaths think very differently from most health professionals. The odder the story, the better we can make a good prescription. Bare your soul, however weird it sounds. We will not send you to the funny farm!
I offer Skype consultations worldwide for both people and animals.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Natural, Nutritious Food, Not Just for Horses
With much of my pasture burned in a summer fire, I had to find extra food for my horses this year. Grass, or hay, is the food that horses (as well as all grazers) need in bulk. My pasture is as organic as it can be, with spraying done all around me. So I really didn’t want to resort to buying hay that had been subjected to all the usual pesticides and fertilisers. Try and find one which hasn’t...
I did manage to find a local supplier of meadow hay, as opposed to the more common oaten hay so common here, which had only been treated with super-phospate fertiliser. A compromise while I did some more research.
Feeding whole grain can be wasteful, as much is passed through undigested. I also rejected cooking grain as this destroys much of the nutrition.
You may have heard about sprouting grains. A seed is a power storehouse of nutrition, to get the plant started in life. As a seed, this nutrition is latent, locked away for when the seed germinates. This nutrition can be safely stored for years, even centuries.
Wheat grass has become a common human food supplement in the health food industry. And there is a lot of chlorophyl in wheat grass which is healthy, not just for grazing animals.
Eating seeds does have some benefit, but by sprouting them, a lot more is released. So eating sprouted seeds is MUCH more beneficial for you than just eating the seeds. This is true for nuts too, as they are also seeds, all-be-it larger ones.
Sprouted barley grass is a new and booming industry as a cost effective and nutritional alternative to bulk feeding grazing animals. This is normally winter in the northern hemisphere, but is summertime here in Western Australia.
The grain is sprouted and then allowed to grow to a short length. The whole product is fed to the animals. From memory, I believe you get something like 10 - 15 kilos of grass for every kilo of grain. And it only takes an average of 10 days from sprouting to eating.
To me this sounded an ideal alternative. I managed to find a certified local organic farmer who sold both wheat and barley, so went to work testing this out.
To get your grain sprouted and then growing, you need to have a controlled environment as both the humidity and the temperature need to be controlled within fairly narrow limits. I turned a cupboard over to this, but it quickly became obvious that you really need a specially fitted shed. Well, that may be feasible for farmers and the like, but not for me with three retired horses.
So I compromised. I decided that I could sprout the seeds and feed that. Sprouting the seed doubles the amount and can be achieved within four days. I can do this in the house, with its more controlled environment than outside. I don’t make a mess, as I have suitable containers. I rinse the seeds with warm water in winter and more often in summer.
And the bottom line is the horses love it. More nutrition. Less wastage. Better health. Economical. Well worth spending the time to get it going, even if it does make your kitchen look more like a grain store...
I offer Skype consultations worldwide for both people and animals. For more information please click here
I did manage to find a local supplier of meadow hay, as opposed to the more common oaten hay so common here, which had only been treated with super-phospate fertiliser. A compromise while I did some more research.
Feeding whole grain can be wasteful, as much is passed through undigested. I also rejected cooking grain as this destroys much of the nutrition.
You may have heard about sprouting grains. A seed is a power storehouse of nutrition, to get the plant started in life. As a seed, this nutrition is latent, locked away for when the seed germinates. This nutrition can be safely stored for years, even centuries.
Wheat grass has become a common human food supplement in the health food industry. And there is a lot of chlorophyl in wheat grass which is healthy, not just for grazing animals.
Eating seeds does have some benefit, but by sprouting them, a lot more is released. So eating sprouted seeds is MUCH more beneficial for you than just eating the seeds. This is true for nuts too, as they are also seeds, all-be-it larger ones.
Sprouted barley grass is a new and booming industry as a cost effective and nutritional alternative to bulk feeding grazing animals. This is normally winter in the northern hemisphere, but is summertime here in Western Australia.
The grain is sprouted and then allowed to grow to a short length. The whole product is fed to the animals. From memory, I believe you get something like 10 - 15 kilos of grass for every kilo of grain. And it only takes an average of 10 days from sprouting to eating.
To me this sounded an ideal alternative. I managed to find a certified local organic farmer who sold both wheat and barley, so went to work testing this out.
To get your grain sprouted and then growing, you need to have a controlled environment as both the humidity and the temperature need to be controlled within fairly narrow limits. I turned a cupboard over to this, but it quickly became obvious that you really need a specially fitted shed. Well, that may be feasible for farmers and the like, but not for me with three retired horses.
So I compromised. I decided that I could sprout the seeds and feed that. Sprouting the seed doubles the amount and can be achieved within four days. I can do this in the house, with its more controlled environment than outside. I don’t make a mess, as I have suitable containers. I rinse the seeds with warm water in winter and more often in summer.
And the bottom line is the horses love it. More nutrition. Less wastage. Better health. Economical. Well worth spending the time to get it going, even if it does make your kitchen look more like a grain store...
I offer Skype consultations worldwide for both people and animals. For more information please click here
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Natural Health Care for Horses
I frequently come across sites for the natural health care for horses, which advocate dolomite as a healthy supplement. It isn’t and can cause untold damage.
Dolomite can be a naturally occurring substance in the soil, or it can be synthetic, made in the laboratory. Either way, it is not a healthy supplement for anyone.
Dolomite consists of calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate. Different suppliers will vary slightly in their content, but roughly the proportion is 55 to 60% calcium carbonate to 40 - 45% magnesium carbonate. This almost 1 : 1 ratio is far too high a proportion. Magnesium is needed in much smaller proportions to calcium.
Both calcium and magnesium are required by horses to build strong and healthy bones, as well as to maintain proper function of every cell in the body. But so too are the other macro minerals, all the trace elements, all the vitamins, all the amino acids, and more.
Not only that, but all these nutrients interdepend on each other. For example bones also need phosphorus, silica, vitamin A and D, as well as sodium and potassium, along with many others.
Nutrition is complicated. Man has merely scratched the surface of what good nutrition is. And a lot of the research comes from companies heavily invested in you buying their product, so it cannot be considered impartial.
Nature, on the other hand, has had eons of experience in which to perfect the art of nutrition. And it goes something like this. A mineral rich soil produces heathy plants. Horses who graze on a complexity and variety of healthy plants, are healthy themselves.
So how can you reproduce this easily? Spreading the dolomite on the ground as a fertiliser is likely to make for more healthy grazing. Naturally occurring calcium rich soil are known to make for the healthiest plants.
Dolomite, along with other mineral supplements, cannot be digested. At best, it will pass through as a waste product. At worst, it will hang up in parts of the body where it shouldn’t be. Later, if not earlier, joint problems can occur, as can problems with the kidneys.
If you want to supplement your horses feed, ensure you do so with a plant based food. Horses evolved to get all their nutrition from plants. And from a variety of plants. Their grazing should contain up to 80 other species of plant. Not all of these will be eaten by the horse, but all will enhance the soil.
For example, patterson’s curse is considered a weed in Western Australia and there is much pesticide spraying done to control it. However, it is a long rooted plant. It can reach minerals deeper in the soil than can grass. As an annual plant, it dies at the end of winter, allowing the minerals to seep into the (depleted and infertile) soils, thus providing a natural fertiliser for the grass.
Nature just doesn’t get things wrong. It’s man’s interpretation of nature that doesn’t understand the bigger picture.
When you give a horse a plant based supplement, any excess is easily excreted. And all the nutrition is in a balanced form, for easy digestion and utilisation.
Two excellent plant based whole food nutritional supplements for horses are kelp (not the garden variety which may be fortified) and algae. Both can also help in these uncertain times of radiation poisoning from the air or sea. Algae helps to expel unwanted toxin build up (including radiation). Both keep your horse healthy so more resistant to health problems.
Dolomite can be a naturally occurring substance in the soil, or it can be synthetic, made in the laboratory. Either way, it is not a healthy supplement for anyone.
Dolomite consists of calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate. Different suppliers will vary slightly in their content, but roughly the proportion is 55 to 60% calcium carbonate to 40 - 45% magnesium carbonate. This almost 1 : 1 ratio is far too high a proportion. Magnesium is needed in much smaller proportions to calcium.
Both calcium and magnesium are required by horses to build strong and healthy bones, as well as to maintain proper function of every cell in the body. But so too are the other macro minerals, all the trace elements, all the vitamins, all the amino acids, and more.
Not only that, but all these nutrients interdepend on each other. For example bones also need phosphorus, silica, vitamin A and D, as well as sodium and potassium, along with many others.
Nutrition is complicated. Man has merely scratched the surface of what good nutrition is. And a lot of the research comes from companies heavily invested in you buying their product, so it cannot be considered impartial.
Nature, on the other hand, has had eons of experience in which to perfect the art of nutrition. And it goes something like this. A mineral rich soil produces heathy plants. Horses who graze on a complexity and variety of healthy plants, are healthy themselves.
So how can you reproduce this easily? Spreading the dolomite on the ground as a fertiliser is likely to make for more healthy grazing. Naturally occurring calcium rich soil are known to make for the healthiest plants.
Dolomite, along with other mineral supplements, cannot be digested. At best, it will pass through as a waste product. At worst, it will hang up in parts of the body where it shouldn’t be. Later, if not earlier, joint problems can occur, as can problems with the kidneys.
If you want to supplement your horses feed, ensure you do so with a plant based food. Horses evolved to get all their nutrition from plants. And from a variety of plants. Their grazing should contain up to 80 other species of plant. Not all of these will be eaten by the horse, but all will enhance the soil.
For example, patterson’s curse is considered a weed in Western Australia and there is much pesticide spraying done to control it. However, it is a long rooted plant. It can reach minerals deeper in the soil than can grass. As an annual plant, it dies at the end of winter, allowing the minerals to seep into the (depleted and infertile) soils, thus providing a natural fertiliser for the grass.
Nature just doesn’t get things wrong. It’s man’s interpretation of nature that doesn’t understand the bigger picture.
When you give a horse a plant based supplement, any excess is easily excreted. And all the nutrition is in a balanced form, for easy digestion and utilisation.
Two excellent plant based whole food nutritional supplements for horses are kelp (not the garden variety which may be fortified) and algae. Both can also help in these uncertain times of radiation poisoning from the air or sea. Algae helps to expel unwanted toxin build up (including radiation). Both keep your horse healthy so more resistant to health problems.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Horse Supplements - Finding the Best One
Horse supplements are as big business as is the pet food industry. The more I look into things, the more corruption I see.
Most horse supplements are made from isolated and synthetic ‘nutrients’ made in a laboratory. If you have been reading any of my emails, you will know what I think about these, but to briefly recap, my take on these are that:
- nutrients don’t exist in nature in isolation
- all nutrients interdepend on each other, making good food the best source
- laboratory ‘nutrients’ are indigestible, making for expensive poo at best, or hanging up in parts of the body causing harm in later, if not earlier, years (examples include kidney and joint problems)
Some parts of the world have amazingly fertile soils, so horses grazing here won’t need much, if any, supplementation. One country that has wonderfully fertile soil is Ireland. Ireland has a limestone base. According to soil experts, when there is natural limestone, all other nutrients are in balance. Which probably explains why Irish horses are so strong and sought after.
Australian soils are very poor, so even non-working horses need some supplementation.
I often use kelp as the main supplement for horses, but it comes from the sea, so has a high salt content. This means it is better to allow the horses to help themselves, rather than mix it in with their food. This avoids overdoing the salt.
But I often wondered if it was enough.
I take a blue green algae from Lake Klamath, which I feel is the most potent and most clean supplement, even though it will be X-rayed as it enters Australia.
However, it was more expensive to give to the horses than I was prepared to spend. So I recently went searching for another source. Imagine my delight when I found a source from Lake Klamath, too.
The benefits of blue-green algae are fairly remarkable. That from a clean and pure environment:
- provides a complete and BALANCED nutrition
- it comes from plants
- has natural cleansing abilities, so helps eliminate toxins
- helps increase the amount of oxygen available to the cells
- improves assimilation of amino acids, so making the whole digestive tract more healthy
Blue green algae is high in virtually all the minerals, vitamins, amino acids and other nutrients. It is a whole food, in natural balance, so is easily absorbed and utilised. Any excess is easily discarded.
It retains a high level of enzymes, which are essential to the digestion and absorption of food.
Keeping your horse’s system clear of toxins, with adequate nutrients, will not only improve their digestive tract, but also their immune system.
Many ailments are caused by a dietary insufficiency. Get this right and you’ll find it cures many health problems.
I offer Skype/telephone consultations worldwide for both people and animals. For more information please click here
Monday, January 10, 2011
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