The principle of self-selection is known as Zoopharmacognosy. The belief is that your horse will choose what he needs to self medicate given the opportunity.
Animals have an innate ability to self-medicate, and in the wild would naturally forage and find the most appropriate medicinal plant compound to improve their well-being. By nature they are extremely sensitive and intuitive and would naturally select aromatic remedies to keep their well-being in balance, these remedies may include herbs, plants, barks, resins, clays etc. This process of animals selecting their own medicinal remedies is called Applied Zoopharmacognosy. Applied Zoopharmacognosy or self-selection works by giving back to animals the medicinal non-food remedies that they would naturally seek out in the wild.
We would all love our horses to be able to naturally roam and pick from hedgerows and different grasses. The reality is most horse owners have their horses at livery on well grazed, fertilized fields with limited or no variety of grasses and hedgerow plants.
However we can offer the type of herbs they would naturally find to help supplement and provide enrichment to their diet. At My Healthy Pet we are passionate about giving our horses the opportunity to show us what they need.
We can offer our horses herbs in water (known as a water buffet) or dried by hand or in bowls. Horses will take as much or little as they need. Their needs will vary throughout the seasons. The joy of offering supplementary herbs this way is that there is no danger of giving too much as the horses themselves are making that decision for you.
How to offer herbs in a water buffet
Tubtrugs are perfect for this. Just fill up as many tubtrugs as you need for the amount of herbs you wish to offer. It can be anything from 1 to 7. Fill your tubtrugs with water and then add a couple of scoopfuls of your chosen herb to each trug. Don’t worry about giving too much or too little as the horses will adapt to the strength you give them. Too weak and they’ll drink loads, too strong and they’ll only sip. Always provide fresh, clean water as normal. Top up the water as necessary and change herbs every 3 or 4 days.
How to offer dried herbs
You can either do this by hand, or by placing some in feed bowls on the floor and allowing them to select.
If you need any help in choosing what herbs to offer then please get in touch.