These Holistic Health Tips are genuine practical remedies we have discovered over the years looking after horses. They are like little nudges that can help a system to pull out of a rut.
Always gives yourself time to consider the whole system first when you are seeking to give support. Often when you can identify the whole issue that is going on, the minor remedies like these health tips will come along easily.
Holistic Health Tips
Coconut oil is an essential part of your alternative first aid kit. It has so many uses that there are hundreds of books devoted to the subject. The main things we use it for are:
- Soothing and healing balm for itchy skin conditions
- Safe to put into sore and inflamed eyes to ease and cleanse them
- For humans fantastic for oil pulling, a profound detox for mouth & teeth
- Deters Flies and keeps areas that they frequent moisturised.
Plantain For Poultices
Plantago major common name Plantain is a herb, not to be confused with the banana-like fruit. It is very adaptable and it can often be found growing in the stonier, less fertile areas. For example at the edges of the horse yard, or in the parts of the field where there is less grass and more weed. To make a poultice:
- Either wash the leaves, cut them up a bit and make an infusion (like tea)
- Or mash them with a food processor and a little water
- Wait till cooled to warm if infusion, or use mash and cover wound
- Bandage carefully first with sterile gauze, then soft leg bandages
The power of nettles
Nettles are a wonderful resource for horses and humans. Like us, horses prefer to eat them when they have been dried because of their stings. They can either be picked and hung up to dry and fed later. You can even just chop them down in your horse’s field. If the weather is dry, they will soon dry out for your horse to find. If you do get stung by a nettle, forget about finding a Dock leaf because that really doesn’t have any effect! instead use gloves or a stick and open up a stem of the nettle plant itself. Rub the nettle’s own juice on your sting and it will be soothed instantly. Of course the nettle contains the antidote to her sting.
Colloidal Silver
Colloidal silver can disable the specific enzyme that many strains of bacteria, viruses and fungi utilize for their own oxygen metabolism. It is therefore a powerful competitor for antibiotics, and for that reason has suffered a bad press recently. It is important to be sure of the quality of your source. The silver particles must be as fine as possible and suspended in a correctly distilled water. I have found it particularly useful for mopping up blood parasite diseases in dogs (contracted from ticks) sore throats in people and infections in general. I am sure it was the saviour of my wonderful farm-pig Esmée when she came down suddenly with erysipelas in her heart.
