Essential Oils & Horses

[JB]

@LifeWithoutHorsesIDontThinkSo

I am simply just curious about uses for horses since I’ve heard so much lately about uses for everything else. I have heard you can make your own fly sprays that are not toxic with essential oils. Has anyone tried that with any luck? I know sometimes the natural stuff doesn’t work like the stuff loaded with chemicals.

Citronella, cedarwood, lavender, peppermint, eucalyptus, and lemongrass, are common EOs used in natural/homemade fly sprays. They do tend to be pretty effective, but how effective depends on their carrier (needs to be an oil, both for staying power, and to hold the EOs), and the concentration. Even commercial synthetic chemical fly sprays that are water-based don’t last as long as those that are oil-based.

It also depends on what the native bugs have adapted to. They can definitely become immune to the effects of a given product if that’s used exclusively on a frequent enough basis (ie exclusive and multiple times a day, vs exclusive but just a few times a week)

As for their use with horses - IMHO any positive effect from most of them will come from olfactory sensory input. There is too much hair, and too thick skin, for most topical applications of any cost effectiveness to have any impact. The ones that will have the most impact are heating or otherwise tingle-inducing. And depending on what you believe and have experienced yourself with EOs on your own skin, most of them require regular use to have any appreciable impact, because they are not drugs, they do not have an immediate effect.

And even then, there is no guaranteed response to any EO, no matter how much you love or believe in them. I do use them, for myself. One thing I use them for is sleep assistance. For a long time I played around with different combinations that always included lavender (because that’s the long-touted sleep EO, right?) I used others like cedarwood. orange, chamomile, and some others. Adding cedarwood guaranteed worse sleep, borne out over trials of adding it and removing it and doing my best to wish it into being effective. But so many say with cedarwood they are out like a light. Not me.

However, when I REMOVED lavender, and added cedarwood back in, the difference was significant.

I’d never discount the ability of quality EOs to impact (good or bad) a horse who smells it. Olfactory senses are sharp and sensitive, but there are variances in every individual. Among our cats, there is one who can smell lavender or just-applied perfume on you a mile away and runs like she’s been stung. But another one could sniff the bottle and not blink twice (no, I don’t allow that, but she couldn’t care less about strong odors). Same with people, and same with horses.

And don’t negate the placebo effect Nothing wrong with that at all.

[ownerof2mfts]

To the OP yes like with anything else that we put in front of our horses do your research, I know DoTerra is one of the top oils out there - I have used Lavender on Scout to keep him calm while the farrier does his feet - I have also used Peppermint as a cooling mist after a heavy work out, I have used Deep Blue on one of my horses stifle - yes there are some oils that you don’t want your horses or any of your pets to ingest - cats are very sensitive to some oils like ones that have citruses… but that’s where research comes in and where the groups on Facebook comes in handy - and yes they will try to get you to maybe buy the oils but anybody selling SOMETHING is going to want you to buy their product… all i am saying is yes EO can be used on animals…

[Scribbler]

I would try to find something more credible than FB groups. Like a vetbsite. The amount of false information that gets passed around on fb is beyond belief.

[Guilherme]

@Scribbler

I would try to find something more credible than FB groups. Like a vetbsite. The amount of false information that gets passed around on fb is beyond belief.

Wait a minute…they can’t put anything on the internet that isn’t true. Right? RIGHT??? RIGHT???

Gotta go now; got modeling gig!!!

G.

[mswillie]

@LifeWithoutHorsesIDontThinkSo

I am simply just curious about uses for horses since I’ve heard so much lately about uses for everything else. I have heard you can make your own fly sprays that are not toxic with essential oils. Has anyone tried that with any luck? I know sometimes the natural stuff doesn’t work like the stuff loaded with chemicals.

Just because it’s “natural” doesn’t make it safe. Poison ivy is “all natural”, doesn’t mean I’m going to put it in a salad and eat it. Chemicals are all around you. They are neither good nor bad. It all depends on the use and the dose. Keep in mind that some essential oils are toxic.

Personally I like the way many essential oils smell so I have a few different ones around the house. None at the barn though.

[Ghazzu]

@LifeWithoutHorsesIDontThinkSo

I am simply just curious about uses for horses since I’ve heard so much lately about uses for everything else. I have heard you can make your own fly sprays that are not toxic with essential oils. Has anyone tried that with any luck? I know sometimes the natural stuff doesn’t work like the stuff loaded with chemicals.

Essential oils are chemicals.Primarily monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes.

[Cindyg]

I have three comments on this:

1. My previous horse was a wild hare. Once my trainer took him to a holistic vet, and he (my horse) was going ballistic. The vet took a vial of some sort of oil and rubbed it on his face, and within moments, my horse was like he was sedated.

I bought a vial of the oil and it never worked like that for me. Even though I observed it, I have no idea what happened and couldn’t replicate it.

2. I use a salve from Young Living Oils called Animal Scents, and it’s really quite good. I use it on myself as well as on my horses.

3. I use an essential oil fly spray called Flicks. I don’t know if it actually deters flies, but I use it as a skin conditioner, mainly on the tailbone, and it works really well.

[JB]

I love love love Flick’s. It does work really well here, including against deer flies, but like pretty much everything “natural”, it’s short-lived. But I use fly predators, so aside from the deerflies and the B-52 Bombers, there really isn’t a big fly problem here. I tend to only spray while working someone, and later in the Summer when the botflies come out, and the regular flies start to get what I call “big dumb and stupid” as they near the end of their life and aren’t shoo’d away for nothin’!

[stephyw]

I think you shouldn’t apply pure essential oils topically or orally to your horse because these oils can be dangerous (especially tea tree oil) and there’s not enough evidence that they’re effective.

[stephyw]

I think you shouldn’t apply pure essential oils topically or orally to your animal because these oils can be dangerous (especially tea tree oil) and there’s not enough evidence that they’re effective.

[Guilherme]

@Scribbler

Essential oils are having a moment again. They are being marketed with absurd over promises for use on people and there is a big multi level marketing scam going on with oils ( all mlm is a scam).

That means it’s important to sort out the reality from the hype.

I’m amused this has suddenly gone mainstream since essential oils and associated magical thinking were a staple of alternative hippy health food stores and lore for decades.

How do oils work on people? A certain amount of their effect if any has to do with emotional responses to smells.

Animals have far more sensitive noses than people and rely on their noses to understand the environment. Also they have different emotional responses than people. So while humans might find lavender calming, IME a horse finds the sight and smell of horsey friends the most calming thing.

Obviously some plant products such as mints and menthol and eucalyptus are useful ingredients in topical treatment for mild muscle pain and work as counter irritants.

Citronella was the active ingredient in grooming products before silicon conditioners, and in flyspray before current formulations.

Tea tree oil has antiseptic qualities.

If I need to use a product with a strong smell on a horse for real medical or grooming reasons of course I go ahead and do it. But I wouldn’t use them for atmosphere or relaxation because I am just needlessly disrupting my horses interaction with the world.

That said you might sometimes want to. The old trick of putting vicks vapor rub on a stallions nose so he can’t smell mares could also be done with a pungent essential oil. So there may be cases where deliberately blindfolding the horses nose does help them relax.

Some people also deliberately introduce a signature scent into massage or grooming sessions so that horses come to have a positive connotation with that smell.

I just rely on them being able to smell me.

I’ve also noticed that strange horses tend to love me when I am wearing barn clothes saturated with the presence of my big skanky friendly confident boss mare. Other horses love her and apparently like me by association! I think they can surely tell a horse person from an outsider this way. So I don’t wear perfume to the barn.

As far as thinking that essential oils might cure a real problem such as colic or laminitis or a systemic infection, that would be very foolish and dangerous to believe. Horses crash and die very fast and every hour that delays real vet care increaes the chance of a bad outcome.

So no, I don’t have much use for essential oils around horses except to the extent they are part of a topical formulation.

And indeed I don’t have much use for them in people either these days. Though I did have a backpacking world traveller phase in the hippypunk 1980s that involved a certain amount of patchouli and lavender oil. At which my fully adult self cringes.

One of the best thoughtful critiques of this “alternative” that I’ve read lately! Thank you.

G.

[BigMama1]

@MissAriel

Essential oils are today’s snake oil. They have minimal benefit, typically for topical uses, and are incredibly expensive and over-hyped. And they have been shown to be potentially toxic to numerous animals recently, particularly house pets.

Save your money for something that actually works, unless you just like the smell.

This

[RainWeasley]

I am so, so glad to see there are some sensible people on here regarding EOs. My friends all jumped on the bandwagon a few years ago, with Young Living. They are still on it. I never really cared for it but I tried it a bit to appease them. I never saw any difference with them. At all. Even when I watched friends use it on their horses and were all “Oh Dobbin LOVES this oil, look how relaxed it makes him”, there literally was no difference in the behavior of the horse. They claim that they never get sick anymore, them or the kids, since they started using EOs, but they DO get sick. It’s really interesting how the mind tries so hard to validate when you really want something to be working. What is it, confirmation bias I think? That’s a lot of the magic of EOs.

That being said, I do get some lavender oil every now and then because I love the smell and it helps me relax a bit sometimes. Other times the smell is too strong and makes my anxiety worse, but in general I like the lavender. But not because I think it is going to magically make my anxiety disappear, simply because I just like how it smells.