Healing Herbs - natural plant remedies

25/10/2024

WINTER SUPPLEMENTS 🐎❄️

Now is a great time to prepare for winter with some home-made supplements and tonics to capture essential vitamins and minerals, as well as phytonutrients that fight off disease and illness. By the depths of winter, diversity of forage is limited meaning nutrient range and quantity are also limited, particularly if your horse is on a predominantly hay diet.

Would you like to make some very cheaply, for your horse (or yourself if you fancy), then read on...

To tincture these supplements, you need a liquid to draw the nutrients into, and some herbs to draw them from. Easy right? Usually, tinctures are made with alcohol, and they are wonderful, but not so much if you're a horse, because of this we are going to use variants that are more equine friendly. Vinegar (apple cider vinegar) or vegetable glycerin are perfect.

You’ll need a clean glass jar with a metal lid (sterilize by steaming, soaking in boiling water for a few minutes or by using baby sterilizing tablets)

A small piece of baking paper to cover the top of the jar

An elastic band to secure the baking paper

Enough liquid to ¾ fill your jar

Dried or fresh herbs and seeds

A fine straining mesh or muslin cloth

A jug

A little bit of patience – that's why we’re starting now

If you take my upcoming water-buffet class on the Equine Academy, you’ll receive a huge list of wild and culinary herbs you could use for this, but I'll include a few ideas for some basic winter supplements further on.

Proportions: Fresh herbs, use 1 part plant : 2 parts liquid

Dried herbs, use 1 part plant : 15 parts liquid

Ready? Lets go

🌱Roughly, chop any plant matter and put into the jar

🌱Pour on enough liquid to almost fill the jar, leave a couple of centimeters gap at the top

🌱Wipe the rim clean, and place the baking paper over, secure with the elastic band (you don’t need the lid yet)

🌱Write the date on the jar so you'll know when it's finished

🌱Gently swirl the contents around the jar every couple of days by picking it up and making circular movements, this will keep all the material soaked

🌱Wait 2 weeks, or 4 if you can

🌱Strain the liquid through your strainer or cloth into a clean jug. You can really wring it out with your hands if you want to

🌱Wash and sterilize the same jar and lid again

🌱Pour the infused liquid into the jar and put the lid on

🌱Label with the contents and the date

🌱Dont waste the herbs you’ve soaked, add them to a feed instead of throwing them away!

Storage: An infused vinegar – technically an aceta (look at you being a herbalist and all) will keep for 6 months to a year

An infused glycerin – a glycerite will keep for up to 3 years

Best in a cool, dark place

To use: Pour a glug into drinking water (always offer plain water separately) or over a feed. If you’re not comfortable with a glug, aim for 2 tablespoons

07/07/2024

Not a plant remedy, but as its natural AND very helpful to horses, I think I'll share.

Take a guess what I'm making with this lot?

Hint, it's one of those things that in the horse world, costs a lot of your hard earned cash, but when you DIY, it suddenly becomes very affordable...

18/04/2024

17/04/2024

The joys of filming outdoors

12/05/2023

Tinctures for horses.

I see some people advocating these. In principle, it's not a terrible idea, but the majority of tinctures are based on strong alcohol. This is not suitable for horses, even in small amounts and, there are better ways.

You can tincture into vegetable glycerine or vinegar, both of which are more palatable to the horse and safer too.

Alcohol, glycerine and vinegars all have the ability to extract different types compounds, from plants, so be sure to check out what you need to pull, before deciding on the liquid mentsrum.

Please don't give your horse alcohol tinctures, there's no need.

12/04/2023

I woke up this morning, with a strange hankering to make some fluffy, whipped body butter, with silk protein.

Luckily I did get a little spare time, and I already had some damask rose infused grapseeed oil (if you've done any of my horse herbal courses, you'll know the quickest ways to infuse an oil). Added to ¼ cup of that, I used ¼ cup coconut oil, ½ cup shea butter, a few drops of silk protein, vitamin E and a drop of a preservative - as if it will be around that long, ha ha 😂 for less sheen on the finished, used product, I could have popped in a pinch of cornstarch.

They were gently warmed together in a double boiler. Once melted, I poured the mixture into a bowl and left it in the fridge to set. As soon as I had chance this evening, I grabbed the electric whisk, and beat it into a marshmallowy submission.

It's super-light, smells heavenly, and my skin feels incredibly soft. It's filled a 350g jar with a dash left over. Altogether, cost me less than £2.

All the ingredients are easily available online and you can infuse any skin loving plant you fancy. What about burdock, plantain, chervil or purple dead nettle - they're all growing now and are perfect for this.

Have fun making your own and you'll never bother with store bought again.

21/03/2023

The muck heap, from showing first signs of supporting life, to fully composted, and being graded into a paddock.

Just a small section of my diverse, online challenge series, where you can learn how to harness natural, organic methods throughout the seasons cycle, to boost your horses health.

Growing and using herbs with multiple purposes is easy, each challenge is a complete, bite sized guide, with an achievable end result.

Available on the Equine Academy, try "Be your own horse herbalist" now, for the price of a bag of feed 🤩🐎🌱

06/01/2023

Today I hacked up 6kg of raw, organic beeswax, for the first stage of rendering. Soon, some will be used to make prizes, for a few lucky readers of the upcoming free Equine Academy journal.

If you want to be in with a chance of winning a herbal winter goodies pack, handmade by me, don't forget to request your copy :)

22/11/2022

Let's talk about a herb that's available in winter, for free.

Rosehips are the fruit of a rosebush. They are very nutritious containing vitamins A, B5, B6, C, E & K as well as magnesium, calcium, phosphorus & potassium.

Used for 7 days, they can help repopulate the gut with beneficial bacteria, used for a month and they can offer pain relief, especially from osteoarthritis.

Your horse can eat rosehips whole - they make great training treats, the little hairs inside won't irritate him, and a tablespoon full a day is enough to see the benefits. But, you could also make them into a warm herbal tea! Take half a cupful and add 1.5l (or thereabouts) of very hot water, cover it over and let it steep for 20 mins. Serve as is, or pour over feed. Its that simple. Give your horse a little rosehip boost this winter.

NB: Wild rosehips will contain more phytonutrients than cultivated ones, avoid chemically treated pants. See the video for how to remove them without pulling and getting snagged.

22/11/2022

Equine Academy deals

🖤BLACK FRIDAY TICKET GIVEAWAY🖤

Fantastic rewards, discounts and freebies!
Simply visit www.equineacademy.org between Black Friday and Cyber Monday to search for your ticket. Get a reminder> equineacademy.org/black-friday

16/11/2022

WHY HORSES SHOULDN'T BE INGESTING ESSENTIAL OILS 🌿
~ Every horse owner and professional using essential oils with horses needs to read this - and it's 100% FREE! ~

Delving into the uses of essential oils for horses, specifically looking at the possible consequences of allowing them to ingest essential oils and even massaging them into a horse’s coat. Amelia questions the safety and sensibility of ingestion from the perspective of safeguarding and examines the possible complications of ingesting Essential Oils.

Equine herbology specialist Amelia Phillips, who lives in the heart of the essential oil country in Bulgaria, speaks with various professionals within the industry and the article features an interview with Robert Tisserand - Owner of The Tisserand Aromatherapy Company, the Tisserand Institute and author of 'The Art of Aromatherapy'.

Read the full article for FREE in the EA Journal
Get your copy now 👉 www.equineacademy.org/journal
Members 👉 Access your copy anytime from the learning area

Healing Herbs - natural plant remedies

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15/11/2022

Hurrah, the treatment worked, little Moppa is happily recovered, not at all lame and out doing his thing as if nothing had happened. Bleeding staunched with my home-made styptic powder, wound cleaned and no infection.

If you're interested in making animal (and human) effective and pure first aid remedies, from the very plants beneath your feet, I have courses on the Equine Academy that teach you step by step. I can also run in-person workshops on your yard :)