Essential Oils & horses

[SLW]

Anyone use them and swear by them, swear at them?? I know ZERO about what claims are made by using them.

A friend does equine massage and as part of her work she uses essential oils. She did two types of massages on my mare over two weeks and left an essential oil for me to use called “Valor”. My mare isn’t the bravest lil cupcake so I was willing to give it a try.

Yesterday I hauled to an indoor to ride, a place my mare hasn’t been to in almost 2 years. I was the only person in the indoor. I put a little Valor in her nose before I left home and then again just before I hopped on.

It was very interesting, no spooking, no looky-looky. My hunch is the essential oil cuts out a lot of the other smells, thus reducing one of the senses (smell) that can make a horse be on guard, etc.

I should add the second massage she did was amazing- my mare nickered and cooed as she worked on one spot. Really cool.

[CactusFlower]

Yes! My whole barn uses Doterra oils and, while I used to be skeptical, I am now a believer! My flighty Arab and I don’t use them every ride, but have Balance (an anti anxiety blend) and InTune (a focusing blend) that we use when needed. I used both during my exams this year. Our acupressure woman uses lavender to get horses to settle down before she works on them. Some of our other horses use different blends. My mom uses one for energy and we put lemon oil in sruff to help digestion. We use Deep Blue, a blend of oils in a lotion, for aching muscles and joints.

Basically, give them a shot! Just make sure you only use thereputic grade oils and are careful about diluting them for sensitivity.

[roseymare]

I think that it possible there is some calming relaxing and air purifying truth to them. Not so sure about other issues. I do use purity myself on a cotton ball in the vents at all hotel rooms I stay in. Keeps me from getting hotel head!

[Ghazzu]

[QUOTE=CactusFlower;8149919]

Just make sure you only use thereputic grade oils and are careful about diluting them for sensitivity.[/QUOTE]

Just make sure you realize that “therapeutic grade oil” is simply a marketing term and has no real meaning.

[SLW]

[QUOTE=roseymare;8149953]
I think that it possible there is some calming relaxing and air purifying truth to them. Not so sure about other issues. I do use purity myself on a cotton ball in the vents at all hotel rooms I stay in. Keeps me from getting hotel head![/QUOTE]

Makes sense and makes scents! I have no idea what essential oils are marketed to do and best I could figure is what I said, the oil blocked out scents and that resulted in a horse less distracted.

[roseymare]

Well they are said to do AMMMAAAAAAZZZING things…but I just stick to using for what seems likely- their aromas. So relaxation, odor control and the like.

[CactusFlower]

[QUOTE=Ghazzu;8149978]
Just make sure you realize that “therapeutic grade oil” is simply a marketing term and has no real meaning.[/QUOTE]

The purer the better, no matter what the label.

Also, I agree that they’re best for calming/energizing/general aromatherapy things. There’s only the one oil that I’ve ever found to have all the promised magical properties, and that’s the deep blue oil I talked about in my last post. But having seen a benefit of essential oils on my own looky horse, I’ll second the surprising impact they can have on the mental state of both horse and rider.

[Lady_Eboshi]

Try chloroform. :lol:

[SLW]

[QUOTE=Lady Eboshi;8151896]
Try chloroform. :lol:[/QUOTE]

LOL!!! It’s a little harsher than ace.

[Bombproof]

Aromatic oils have been researched in humans and certain aromas will cause different parts of the brain to become more or less active, so there’s definitely something to it. That shouldn’t be too surprising because it’s long been known that smell is the strongest way to provoke a memory, so clearly it does something to the brain. Other than their aromas, some essential oils do have other properties such as reducing inflammation because of chemicals in the plant from which they are derived, but I can’t remember off the top of my head which does what. In humans, lavender tends to be calming and I recommend it to people who are anxious or having trouble sleeping. Eucalyptus is also soothing. Most floral scents are activating. Some scents such as peppermint tend to make you think happy thoughts. There’s probably something there for animals, but I’m pretty sure that there’s also a lot of hype, fluff, and outright lying on the part of the manufacturers and sellers. As with anything else medical, I recommend you do your research, find out as much as you can about whether it might work, and give it a trial of 2-4 weeks. If it works, fine, and if it doesn’t don’t buy any more. Just because something is proven to work for a human or horse, that doesn’t prove it will work for your human or horse.