For those of you who use or have used calmers

cobsarefab

cobsarefab

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What exactly happened? How did the horse react and how long did it take to work? Why did you start using a calmer? I've just started using naf magic with my mare and am wondering what effect calmers have had on other people's horses. Also wondering how long it takes to be effective. She's in one of her moody spells at the minute and nearly brought her hoof down on my head today when rearing. I'm not really getting my hopes up but thinking at best it could take the edge off.
 
We tried Naf magic, it had no effect at all. We them bought Calmex from the vet, it worked well for quite a few months, He would stand in the stable and just buck in frustration, but was ok with the Calmex. But the efficiency seemed to wear off eventually. It was used for a pony on box rest for what turned out to be nearly a year.
Just noticed that you asked how long it took to work, for the Calmex, two or three days.
I feel it was a fair trial of calmers, as it was not influenced by human actions, i.e. tension when riding or at shows,
 
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Magnesium based calmers will only work if the horse is lacking in magnesium, if they are not then it will have no benefit and may have the opposite effect and make the worse, if they are going to work you should see some improvement fairly quickly.

If she is rearing when you lead her please always wear a hat, get something on her so you can stay in more control, a control halter or bridle and ideally get some professional help in before you have an accident, this mare has issues that don't seem to be improving despite your many threads asking for advice that seem to be making little difference, I guess she is still living alone, becoming more frustrated and not getting enough work to get her weight down, it would be better to spend the money on some proper help than calmers that will be unlikely to make any real difference.
 
I use Camomile. But I'd get an instructor in.
I used herbs as my pony was off the moor, but D & H Placid or Chamomile seems to work. I'll tell you better when I take him off it.
 
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be positive said:
Magnesium based calmers will only work if the horse is lacking in magnesium, if they are not then it will have no benefit and may have the opposite effect and make the worse, if they are going to work you should see some improvement fairly quickly.

If she is rearing when you lead her please always wear a hat, get something on her so you can stay in more control, a control halter or bridle and ideally get some professional help in before you have an accident, this mare has issues that don't seem to be improving despite your many threads asking for advice that seem to be making little difference, I guess she is still living alone, becoming more frustrated and not getting enough work to get her weight down, it would be better to spend the money on some proper help than calmers that will be unlikely to make any real difference.
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This! Magic is mainly magnesium as far as I know. Its almost certainly not going to sort your problems. If you arent very careful you are going to get hurt. I think people, especially teenagers, tend to think they are invincible. You arent. If she rears up and plants you one on the head you are going to be in serious trouble
 
all generally pretty rubbish and ineffective. look at what you are feeding. cut out cereals - try happy hoof or similar, speedy beat, top chop zero - my boy is a 17.2 competition horse and that is all he gets apart from linseed and Kentucky joint supplement. it works well for him and he can be very tricky
 
be positive said:
Magnesium based calmers will only work if the horse is lacking in magnesium, if they are not then it will have no benefit and may have the opposite effect and make the worse, if they are going to work you should see some improvement fairly quickly.

If she is rearing when you lead her please always wear a hat, get something on her so you can stay in more control, a control halter or bridle and ideally get some professional help in before you have an accident, this mare has issues that don't seem to be improving despite your many threads asking for advice that seem to be making little difference, I guess she is still living alone, becoming more frustrated and not getting enough work to get her weight down, it would be better to spend the money on some proper help than calmers that will be unlikely to make any real difference.
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she is improving but it's very slow progress. I couldn't even get a halter on her in January. She does have an instructor who comes weekly. I will be taking precautions in the future to make sure I am safe.
 
If you want to help her you need to look at her lifestyle because until that is satisfactory from her POV all the supplements in existence will not prevent the near misses that you experience. IMHO a companion would help. What happened to your idea of moving to a yard?

I've just looked at your pictures - what is that horse ownership reality picture saying?
 
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cobsarefab your sig is currently taking up a whole screen, there are sizing regs for sigs for that reason so it will probably get removed if you don't resize as they make the forum difficult to read.

Fwiw I feed magnesium, it has never acted as a calmer, I feed it because I have high calcium low magnesium grazing.
 
My tricky 17 hands warm blood is luckily a good doer. Cannot tolerate any horse feeds. Pushes him over the edge. Only has fruit and vegetables. Plus forage and grass. I've never found a calmer that works and are ridiculously expensive
 
IME calmers generally have a better effect on the owner/rider than they do on the horse. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. However I do think you have more problems there OP than a calmer will help with.
 
Rowreach said:
IME calmers generally have a better effect on the owner/rider than they do on the horse. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. However I do think you have more problems there OP than a calmer will help with.
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I agree that calmers can have a placebo affect on the owner. Much like rescue remedy
 
My young mare is on no hard feed other than her general vits. She goes a bit bonkers out competing. I used Vetrocalm syringe 30 minutes before unloading her when we arrived at an ODE. I won the tube and had no great expectations, other than "I have it so it's worth a try". I felt the exact moment it kicked in. She stopped spooking at thistles! She ALWAYS spooks at thistles lol .. She rode her best dressage test for 67% and, yes, after this I can totally accept that my confidence soared and anything from then on may have been placebo effect on me/more positive riding. However, the next day she was back to spooking at thistles lol.
 
It didnt work, but I'm not going to blame the calmer for that - the horse it turned out had kissing spine, so nothing was really going to work.
 
IMO the only calmers that work are those that have a proven active ingredient (and are usually banned for competition). I used to use valerian with my old stressy mare when she had to deal with something she found difficult (e.g. yard move) and would again for certain situations, like if my rescue pony needed to be stabled.

My cob was a bit difficult in the first few weeks I owned him, including rearing in hand a couple of times. He didn't need a calmer, he wasn't lacking calmness just testing a new handler.

I feed magnesium in spring and autumn, primarily for hooves but it does seem to help with some of the "spring madness". Taking them off the grass would probably be more effective if it was a real concern.
 
When Alfie was on box rest (tendon injury & mud fever) he was on global herbs thoroughbred calmer and it did actually seem to work, sort of. Good points: stopped him trying to excavate to china digging and weaving (bearing in mind stable has earth floor) ; meant he didn't actually literally kill anybody when having his heels attended to; and it WAS based off herbs instead of chemicals. Bad points: it became financially unsustainable for the amount of time he was stabled (ended up being about six months because he did the tendon again!! ) - something like £25 for a 1kg pot;it took 20 min to work and you couldn't disturb horse during that time whatsoever, which was very hard to do, even a bike going past the field was enough to sometimes stop it working; also the dose built up over time so provided you kept it up horse ended up virtually permanently asleep but miss one and entire effect was lost, Alfie ended up dragging me round the field and rearing; and it wasn't strong enough for the beginning of the resting period or for one off events eg fireworks because as I said it's accumulative. (the vet gave us sedalin for that and still does when there's fireworks or similar). I'm also fairly sure the "thoroughbred calmer but was just another way of sticking an extra tenner on the price lol.
 
Sounds more like bad behaviour that needs addressing through training rather than nerves so I doubt a calmer will work.

However when I moved yards and started hacking out in a new environment I found RelaxMe seemed to work very well on my spooky WB. It's supposed to act on mind and tummy.

When on box rest I gave a herbal supplement with things like Valerian and chamomile in which are actually known to work but as someone else said not suitable if competing but may be a help in the short term.
 
I use Lincoln Pro 5 Mag calmer for mine. I find it just helps him focus more instead taking notions that the coot in the corner of the arena is going to eat him... he still would have the odd spook now but I found when I put him on the lincoln clamer suddenly we had focus and I could school without worrying that we would suddenly take off because a tree whistled... I find its just taken the edge off him enough to work. I'd tried Naf and one other that the name escapes me and they did nothing

Who knows if its the calmer or he's finally just decided to grow up a bit! Though saying that I noticed he was getting spookier again and found out my other half when he had made up his feeds was neglecting to add the calmer to the feed... once I retrained him in making the feeds suddenly the spookiness disappeared again... so I guess it must have some affect!
 
I've tried most calmers on the market. Most turned out to be magnesium based (including NAF Magic) which won't work if not deficient in it.

I tried Stepfree from Hackup.co.uk which worked on my friends stallion, at the time mine was about 35 ish, I though well if it works on a stallion its possible it will work on mine. It did thankfully. I can't recommend it highly enough and they've just made a new recipe. He was not sedated in any way but was less reactive to monsters !

Only other one that I tried with a bit of success is Lincoln Valerian but can't be used if you are competing you'd have to check
 
I had my mare on a calmer but it never worked but a friend I know swears by it.She put her horse on NAF Magic and he's been on it 3.5 years or so.She took him off it about 2 years ago to see if it made a difference and after about 7 days her horse started shying at stuff again. So she put him back on it and he resumed his normal attitude after around ten days. A few months on thinking it was just a co-incidence she took him off it again and again he reverted back to how he was before, again put him back on and after a week or so calmness ensued!.So that was enough proof for her and he remained on it since. Apart from a silly incidence with some barley water which was fed unbeknown to her at the yard he was at and he reacted so badly to it behaviour wise she almost stopped riding him, he's never had a problem since, she has said that he deescalates so much quicker than he used to.
 
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