Calmers!

P

polly101

Member
Sep 25, 2009
374
2
18
Shropshire
After a rather exciting hack out this morning, im going to give up on calmers for the moment.

a while ago he got a bit silly out on hacks so tried various calmers.

First tried magic - did nothing, then v calm (contains valerium) did seem to work but i was worried that it made him a bit too dozy and he used to trip a bit. then i tried a trial pack of pro kalm. seemed to make a difference, so used it once in a while when he hadnt been out for a while, until one day it just didnt seem to make any difference, i upped the dose and i swear it made him worse :help: so stopped using it and he seemed to improve.

Well hes bing silly again at the mo, so as i was riding to meet my friend on her horse today, thought i would try him back on v calm. Well he was spooking at the cows as soon as we got through the get, he sees these cows everyday!!, so anyway i felt like he was going to bolt usuall signs head throwing, jogging, so i bottled it and waited for my friend outside my gate, he was a bit better with company but still on edge.

So i have come to the conclusion that calmers now make him worse! could this be possible??
any one else had this.

I wish i could be more confident on him, he has bolted with me on the road in the past and have recently had a few unintentional canters down the road, he does stop when asked which is something he never used to do. Even though i love him and had him 2 years, i do feeel i should have bought perhaps an older horse who could give me a bit of confidence.

I just feel im waiting for him to take off with me all the time,

I am going to get some lessons on him soon, waiting to hear back from the instructor, so maybe that will help.

OMG i do ramble on a bit dont I! :help:
 
Wendels herbal calmer used to work for my cob in spring. Don't know if they still do it now.

I suggest cutting his grazing and giving him extra hay and chaff instead till the spring flush has passed. Leave out any cereals if you are still feeding. If he is a on the thin side use calm and condition:smile:
 
I suspect you've hit the nail on the head when you say you've lost confidence in him. He'll sense your worry & that will unsettle him, which makes you more worried & creates a downward spiral. No amount of calmers are going to solve that, a dose of dutch courage for you is likely to be more effective!

Do you have a confident friend who fancies some riding & could get him out for you? More work for him would help settle him & if you heard that he was behaving then you'd probably feel more confident on him. The lessons will also help, particularly if you could get a teacher who could come out with you.
 
I did read on the Global Herbs calmer that at first it could make them more alert - before it kicks in (the long term one). However, I've used the Global Herbs instant calming sachets and they are brilliant! They are really fab - expensive, but well worth the money if you've got a "big occasion such as amove - great for helping them load calmly etc.
I have used Naff supercalm (think thats the right name) and that is a long-term one - with great success - its always difficult to guage - cos at the end of the day, I look at it like this: "what would they be like without"? For example: when Chloe came to live with us I gave Storm some to help her settle and accept he change - and it really helped because I think she'd have been a lot worse without it.
 
Spring grass can be deficient in magnesium so may be worth trying that again, we use ,'Magnitude' it is a lot cheaper than the Magic, a tub lasts six months and is about twenty quid.

Also echo others, is there someone you can hack with?

Keep up updated :)
 
It's funny I've never bothered giving my boy calmer even though he can be as jumpy as hell sometimes. I totally see the issue as being him not having complete faith in my as a leader and I am determined with the spook busting, riding out and leading in hand on same routes as much as possible to get him to a happy place (actually its more for me to see that he can be absolutely fine). He has his bad and good days but I think like ch suggests, it might be a leadership thing that you can work on to build both of your confidences.
 
My boy reacts badly to Valerian Flipo's mum instead of calming him he becomes really hyper & the very devil to ride,the one that seems to work for him is the top-spec calmer.Thinking about it spring has always been a problem for me as not only does he shed an unnatural amount of winter coat but he becomes very spooky indeed.He also becomes aggressive when the grass is rich & do feel that the top-spec one seems to make him more cheerful & soothes his crocodile tendancies when he's being girthed :biggrin:
 
Harvey had pro-kalm and it worked really well for a while and then as you said it stopped working.

However i have found topspec calmer really works for him, he had it every day for a while but now only has it sometimes before something very exciting. It does have a noticeable effect but most of the time we don't use a calmer now.
 
I feed one of mine on Mollichaff Calmer (it's a complete fibre based feed, with magnesium, and some other herbs added). I've certainly seen quite a difference, he's much more laid back generally than he was.

I'm sure some lessons will help your confidence. You could also try some desensitising groundwork stuff, like playing around with umbrellas, tarps, balls, etc. Maybe have a look at "Perfect Confidence" by Kelly Marks, although I think her other books are better, particularly "Perfect Partners."
 
I have tried loads of calmers over the years and the only one I have found that does anything is the Top Spec one.

Agree with Carthorse however that there may be a little more going on than that...if you are worrying he will pick up on it, which makes it a viscious circle.
I know how you feel...Ginger is being a bit of a fool at the moment spooking at things that I know he's not scared of really, and it can be worrying especially on the roads. I am blaming the spring grass!
 
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