Herb’s for Health

For centuries, herbs have been widely used for their health-giving properties. Evidently, some contain high levels of naturally occurring substances called napthoquinones, which have anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, antiviral, insecticidal, anti-inflammatory and antipyretic (fever reducing) properties.

Horses and herbs:

Clearly, herbs are essential to a horse in order to effectively utilise certain nutrients and to regulate their digestive and immune system. Over thousands of years, equines have evolved as foragers, grazing for up to 16 hours a day on a wide variety of grasses, herbs, succulents and even tree bark.

However, by domesticating the horse, mankind has interrupted that process.

Nowadays, the modern equine is stabled, grazing inferior pastures, suffering the stresses and strains of competition, breeding and travelling, given hard feed and in some cases given intermittent access to forage.

Therefore, in order to promote the correct functions within the body, sometimes we need to supplement the horse’s diet. Evidently, some herbs can help to regulate the digestive system: stimulating the muscles in the gut to increase the absorption of nutrients, and thereby supplying the body with more energy and promoting optimum growth.

Other herbs can correct bacterial disorders in the gut -following infection or the use of antibiotics- as well as improve the regulation and control of cleansing the body. ‘Protecting the liver, purifying the body’: The liver works to detoxify the body, particularly during times of stress and infection when the levels of toxicity increase; thus suppressing the immune system. However, particular herbs can help to protect and stimulate the liver during such times of excessive strain, offering maximum protection when the body is most vulnerable.

Extra energy: other herbs, on the other hand, act to boost the energy levels within the body by stimulating the metabolism of carbohydrate in the liver. Thus, promoting the release of enzymes and hormones that assist metabolic reactions within the body, vital for good health and quality performance. Since the body no longer wastes resources and energy fighting infection and disease, the horse will benefit from a healthy, well-balanced body, which in turn will leave your horse with additional energy.

Resistance to stress: Clearly, physical and mental stress both produce large amounts of toxins, which attack the host’s body, causing exhaustion and reduced immune system activity, among many other problems.

For centuries, herbs have been used to combat the physical, biological and chemical effects of stress, thus improving the body’s resistance to the stresses placed upon it and on a larger scale improving the horse’s health and resistance to infection.