Instant calmers & long term calmers

[Charlie Bucket]

Hello all,

I have a very stressy gelding who I currently feed 25g of Equine Answers 'Calma' to daily.

Although it has not been a 'miracle cure' I think it has helped take the edge off, and this years spring grass nightmare has been significantly less traumatic than previous years.

In new and/or exciting situations (new show venues/xc schooling etc) he can get very wound up however calmly I ride etc.

I am interested in feeding him an instant calmer before situations such as the above, can I please have peoples experiences with this?

Is it safe to feed an instant calmer ad-hoc on top of a calmer supplement? I know there is potential to over do the magnesium.

I have bought some NAF Instant Magic for a show this Sunday and wondering whether to use it or not!

Thanks in advance

 

[Pinkvboots]

I have used the global herbs calmer for thoroughbreds on an Arab and it really worked and got me through the first winter with him, I have also used the Carl Hester syringe calmer for a show not sure it really did much, but years ago I used to use rescue remedy on my complete nutter of a mare at shows and I really think it helped, I used to give it to her the day before and all through the day at a show and at least we managed to not get thrown out of the ring! I used to take it as well but you do need a few bottles to get you through a long day

 

[Queenbee]

I have used supreme D-fuse from Supreme products... seriously good product and now my 'go-to'

 

[claret09]

not convinced any really work . the key is to keep calm and keep your adrenaline low

 

[Shay]

Instant calmers work more on the human than the horse - but that is no bad thing. If you expect your horse to be calmer, you will be calmer and he will react to that.

Magnesium based calmers only work if the overall diet lacks magnesium - which is less often the case than advertisers would want you to think. Herbal calmers can help - the one that has most chance of working is valerian - but that is banned in competition.

 

[Charlie Bucket]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Claret09 that is the dream, but sometimes it doesn't quite go to plan!

Is it okay to feed the instant calmer on top of the daily calmer? I can't find any info on this online, other than NAF saying Instant Magic can be fed on top of Magic, however that isn't the supplement I use.

Interesting to hear that a few of you have seen a difference

 

[HappyHollyDays]

I found the best calmer for my horse was to restrict his grass and clover intake, it's worked better than any supplement I have ever used.

 

[supsup]

You can actually feed quite a lot of magnesium before you "overdose" a horse. The horse will simply poo out the excess, but might get loose droppings if fed too much magnesium. So, if your instant calmer is also magnesium based (which the "Calma" product seems to be), I don't think you're at high risk of overdosing. That said, I don't think you'll gain anything from adding the instant calmer. Magnesium only works as a calmer if the horse's diet is deficient in magnesium. Since you're already feeding a magnesium supplement, it's rather unlikely an extra boost on the day will make any difference whatsoever, unless the dose of Calma you feed still leaves your horse deficient. You could try increasing the dose of the Calma and see if it makes any additional difference, but if not, I'd not spend any more money on additional magnesium products.

Instead, you could try calmers that work on a different principle. I bought some sachets (but then never got around to trying them, so can't say if they work) of Confidence EQ, a pheromone that you put in your horses nostrils. It's supposed to work like Feliway for cats by making the horse feel less anxious. Or you could try something like Zylkene, which is a milk protein that is supposed to de-stress. I've never tried that on my horse, but it worked surprisingly well for one of my cats. In the end, I don't think there are any miracle cures, but if you don't mind potentially wasting some money, there's a surprising range of things to try.

 

[scats]

Best calmer I have tried is So Kalm, the liquid stuff. Doesn't stop the hooligan being a hooligan, but he is much less extreme in his reactions. No calmer in 6 years has ever made a difference to him, but I started him on this about 6 weeks ago and I really can, for the first time ever, see a difference in his behaviour.