First off, this horse is NOT being shown, unrated or rated. So I don’t care about if it’s USEF safe. Suggestions for a strong calming supplement? GABA or melatonin were suggested to me.
I had great success with Perfect Prep’s Training Day supplement. I also replaced the Safe Choice I’d been feeding with Renew Gold (horse was sensitive to corn).
A couple of horses I know of that have needed long term stall rest have had good results with Reserpine, but that’s RX. I don’t really know if any of the so-called calming supplements on the market OTC actually do anything.
If there’s no illness or injury preventing it, more turnout is the best calming agent there is.
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I noticed a difference with the SmartCalm Ultra supplement from SmartPak. I think it is magnesium, tryptophan, and a few other things. I did feed it at one and a half or twice the suggested amount and stopped because I didn’t want to pay for it, but I do think it worked.
I also noticed a difference with the Perfect Prep Extreme or whatever, like $20 from Dover.
Melatonin works to regulate the release of hormones that help with sleep cycles, I’m pretty sure, so it doesn’t necessarily make them sleepy. I have insomnia and have tried it a lot and it actually makes my insomnia worse.
It also depends on the reason you need to calm them. I have had stall rest horses eat ace pills in their breakfast and dinner. Reserpine comes with some side effects, it’s not my go-to.
Trazadone…vet prescribed. It’s for anxiety…used more often in dogs. The university vet had me try it on my mare who would have major melt downs over anything (it tests, so no showing). Very good safety profile and was really effective. Got rid of my mare’s spookiness/anxiety without making her dull (so we could ride and do more diagnostics without either of us getting hurt). Cost is similar to the reserpine. Comes in small pills, so you can control the dosing easily.
We tried oral reserpine and there was no effect. I am tentative to do injectable because of side effects.
I will ask the vet about the trazadone
Thx everyone
I have a horse right now that is on Shen Calmer. My vet prescribed it as best option (for now) after we discussed Depo and other chems (side effects etc) + calming supplements + magnesium etc. at great length. In brief: horse has severe OC behavior, escalates himself to f/f mode, can’t self-regulate.
Anyway, after 5 days (2 packets 2 x day; pretty high dose) horse is showing some improvement. The best way I can describe it is that he’s able to think a bit more rationally, can take a breath. Basically his behavior has come down a notch.
Since there is improvement (there could have been none at all) my vet is encourgaged that improvement will continue. If all goes well we’re looking at months of him being on the Shen Calmer. Lowering dose this week to 1 packet 2xday.
If behavior comes down a few more notches – even one more, then I’d say the Shen IS a strong calming Rx for this particular horse.
P.S. Horse is not on stall rest.
We had a vet put a horse on Shen Calmer for stall rest too. They didn’t want to use Ace because he was a stallion. Took about two weeks, but it really did seem to make a difference - albeit not as drastic as you’d see on Ace and longer lasting.
Is Shen calmer a rX or is this a supplement? I can’t seem to find much info about it online
It is prescription. It’s made by Dr. Xie’s Jingtang Herbals - they make a whole line of Chinese herbal medicines.
I’d think the side-effects of oral vs injectable reserpine would be very similar, besides local injection site reactions.
My vet prescribed up to a week of daily dosing (smaller dose amount) to get my horse to the level of sedation needed, then maintained with periodic injections thereafter. After the loading doses, I was dosing every 5-6 days for a very herd-bound horse on complete stall rest. I eventually go to the point of cutting the dose by more than half and dosing every other day towards the end of the stall rest for the best results.
