hest
Well-Known Member
I have read on another thread that you can 'infuse' Valerian root to make your own equine calmer. Has anyone ever tried doing this? How strong should the infusion be? If it is really smelly, would a horse eat it anyway if mixed in with the feed? How much liquid should be put in the feed per day? I am not going to try V-Calm yet for my daughter's 11.3 Welsh if a homemade version could be made and administered safely and be just as effective.
The pony is an angel on the flat and a really good, experienced first ridden pony. He is a calm and chilled out pony 95% percent of the time. But he has a tendency to 'light up' and 'fizz up' when he show jumps. This is because he loves his jumping but my nervous 8 year old daughter is not so keen on approaching all fences at full tilt all of the time! She likes having a go at jumping though and is desperate to get off the lead rein. We have owned and schooled the pony for 6 years now over poles and jumps, and done lots of PC rallies with my children, and he is much better than he was. He is of course, much easier to manage SJ or XC when ridden by an older more confident child (we have one of these to help school him).
Magnesium helps vaguely but, as I understand it,it really needs to be feed as a more long term supplement whereas valerian can be administered the day before you need the calmer to take effect.
Huge thanks for any advice on this. I can only guess that valerian whether in V-Calm or in DIY form must be reasonably effective if it is banned from competition!
The pony is an angel on the flat and a really good, experienced first ridden pony. He is a calm and chilled out pony 95% percent of the time. But he has a tendency to 'light up' and 'fizz up' when he show jumps. This is because he loves his jumping but my nervous 8 year old daughter is not so keen on approaching all fences at full tilt all of the time! She likes having a go at jumping though and is desperate to get off the lead rein. We have owned and schooled the pony for 6 years now over poles and jumps, and done lots of PC rallies with my children, and he is much better than he was. He is of course, much easier to manage SJ or XC when ridden by an older more confident child (we have one of these to help school him).
Magnesium helps vaguely but, as I understand it,it really needs to be feed as a more long term supplement whereas valerian can be administered the day before you need the calmer to take effect.
Huge thanks for any advice on this. I can only guess that valerian whether in V-Calm or in DIY form must be reasonably effective if it is banned from competition!