My older horse tests in the grey area for Cushings and has some minor symptoms (longer hair, drinks a lot, etc.). Has anyone tried Chaste Tree Berry supplement for their horses? If yes, what supplement did you use and what were the results?
I used Su-per Chaste for my hormonal mare and it did wonders to chill her out. She isn’t mean when in heat, just silly and highly distracted.
It says on the label that it’s marketed for Cushing horses, and although I did not use it for that purpose, I know of another woman who used the same stuff for her metabolic gelding and found it helped ease the symptoms.
I tried it for a short time before my horse was diagnosed with Cushings. It did take care of some of the symptoms, such as the lethargy, excessive thirst and urinating. But I did put him on Pergolide after a high ACTH and then switched to Prascend, which was effective at a much lower dose.
You could probably use the CTB but keep on top of your horse’s ACTH levels. You don’t want to play catch up when trying to control it with the Pergolide/Prascend. If it were me, knowing what I know now, I’d probably give a half Prascend and retest. If he’s not full blown Cushings, maybe the symptoms will improve and the dosage will keep it in control.
IME, it helps with the haircoat, but doesn’t budge the ACTH level.
I tried it for a couple months and found that it did nothing. My horse is also borderline positive/negative, but highly symptomatic. It may have helped his shedding slightly, but I still had to clip him. I used straight up whole CTB, ground by me in a spice grinder. Super cheap, but useless IMO. Prascend helped him a lot more.
I just started using SmartPituitary on my gelding with Cushing’s. It contains chasteberry. He is already on Prascend and his ACTH levels are controlled, but the Prascend is not doing much for his other symptoms.
He has, unfortunately, decided that he doesn’t really like the SmartPituitary, even when hidden in a few pounds of Triple Crown Sr. I want him to be on it through spring badly enough that I am now formulating a plan to crush a bunch of Hilton Herballs and add them to the mix to disguise the funny smell, and presumably funny taste, of the SmartPituitary. The Hilton Herballs smell VERY strongly of pizza and both horses love them. They are also sugar free.
The SmarrPituitary has chasteberry as well as a lot of immune system support supplements that I can’t find in other products, so I intend to make him eat the pellets one way or another at least through the shedding season so I can see if they are doing any good or not. He has seemed a little perkier since he started on it. He’s eating some of his small lunch everyday with the pellets in there, but not all of it 
Raising an older thread as I’m considering using Chaste Tree Berry powder in addition to the Prascend just for helping Louie shed more. Anyone else have any updates on using this for that purpose?
It’s going to be in the mid 100’s in Los Angeles this weekend and I’m clipping him (again) on Saturday morning.
I bought chaste berry for a while for a non-cushings horse. It did not hurt the horse. I do not know if it helps for a cushings horse. The product was dried whole berries years ago.
As an update to my December post, I did add the chaste berry on top of the Prascend, and my gelding shed out much faster this year. Last year we had to do a partial clip at the end of Feb, and this year no clipping was needed.
ETA: To clarify, I started plain chaste tree berry powder (from Starwest Botanicals on Amazon) when the beast refused to eat the SmartPituitary.
Good to know. I’m starting Smart Pituitary now for the additional immune support and hoping he will shed more. The strong smell is most likely from the amino acids (Tri Amino has the same stinky smell).
Reading reviews on SP’s site, I’m disappointed to see so many people using this instead of Prascend. The horse may look and act normal, but the ACTH levels will increase without the drug.
^ Exactly. My gelding’s first symptom was laminitis. So I wasn’t going to mess around when the vet told me to put him on Prascend.
My gelding is fine with Tri-Amino, and LOVES the chaste tree berry powder (which gives me hope that he’ll eat Devil’s Claw), but hated the SmartPitiutary. He seems to prefer things that smell really weird. It took me DAYS to convince him that Grand HA was OK to eat. It smelled great to me 
newhorsemommy, I just bought the chaste berry powder on Amazon. Do you mind sharing how much of it you feed to your horse each day?
I’m body clipping Louie tomorrow as it’s supposed to be 110 degrees in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles on Sunday with high heat warnings issued through Wednesday. He can’t have his slow shedding coat for that kind of weather.
[QUOTE=newhorsemommy;8708071]
^ Exactly. My gelding’s first symptom was laminitis. So I wasn’t going to mess around when the vet told me to put him on Prascend.
My gelding is fine with Tri-Amino, and LOVES the chaste tree berry powder (which gives me hope that he’ll eat Devil’s Claw), but hated the SmartPitiutary. He seems to prefer things that smell really weird. It took me DAYS to convince him that Grand HA was OK to eat. It smelled great to me :)[/QUOTE]
Be careful using Devil’s Claw (and boswellia). Both are not recommended by the IR/Cushings group as they can cause gastric upset, which Cushings horses are prone to.
Not to be smartass but… I have a large Vitex (Chaste tree) that I planted in my yard. So I can pick off the berries and feed them to my pony on Prascend???
[QUOTE=pony baloney;8709601]
Be careful using Devil’s Claw (and boswellia). Both are not recommended by the IR/Cushings group as they can cause gastric upset, which Cushings horses are prone to.[/QUOTE]
I’m going to start with a half dose and build-up. Bute doesn’t seem to bother his stomach, so I’m hoping it won’t be an issue.
I’m not sure the previcox is working as well as it should, and Bute (which works really well for him) is difficult to feed in a boarding situation since he hates it. So my hope is that possibly he’ll actually eat the Devil’s claw and that it might actually show some effect.
I feed a “heaping” teaspoon, which is probably closer to two teaspoons.
[QUOTE=SusanO;8709732]
Not to be smartass but… I have a large Vitex (Chaste tree) that I planted in my yard. So I can pick off the berries and feed them to my pony on Prascend???[/QUOTE]
I don’t know… You wouldn’t know how many berries to feed and maybe there’s something in the processing that renders it safer or more effective?
One of my horses were in a cushings research study awhile back and while he was in the study he had his ACTH levels tested every month for a year. He was being given chaste berry during this time.
When the results came back - it showed NO help whatsoever with his ACTH levels… they were still all over the place. I did not see any benefit to his coat or other symptoms that were significant enough to continue the chaste berry after that since it did not show a benefit to the ACTH at all so I took him off of it.
[QUOTE=zoehesed;8710385]
One of my horses were in a cushings research study awhile back and while he was in the study he had his ACTH levels tested every month for a year. He was being given chaste berry during this time.
When the results came back - it showed NO help whatsoever with his ACTH levels… they were still all over the place. I did not see any benefit to his coat or other symptoms that were significant enough to continue the chaste berry after that since it did not show a benefit to the ACTH at all so I took him off of it.[/QUOTE]
I’m using it on top of the Prascend, since that controls his ACTH levels but wasn’t helping with the shedding at all. He shed out at least one full month (and maybe more) earlier this year with the CTB. He’s still got a little of funkiness going on with his coat, but overall he looks pretty damn good for a horse that usually looks like crap until July or August. I run the ACTH every fall, so it’s possible I may need to finally up the Prascend dosage a little bit this year.
I used Hilton Herbs Vitex Plus for my cushings mare. It helped tremendously and since she hated the Pergolide and was difficult to medicate, I was able to reduce the Pergolide. Since she was a picky eater, I didn’t think that she would eat it, but she loved it.
