Horse owners seeking ways to calm fractious horses don’t seem to mind if the products they use have been tested testing to prove they work, a new study shows.
Research conducted by Drs. Diane Ross of the North Highland College and Jayne Roberts of Equijay, Brisbane, Australia, created a study that was distributed to horse owners in Scotland.
Though there were a variety of reasons the owners used calming products, opinions varied on what respondents believed caused the calming aids to work. Nearly 59 percent believed that it was magnesium that had the calming effect while 9 percent thought it was herbs or tryptophan; 32 percent of respondents didn’t know what made the products work—but they tried them.
Of those who tried a supplement to quiet their horse, 48 percent believed they had a calming effect. Nearly 30 percent of those who completed the survey weren’t sure if the supplements worked; 25 percent didn’t think they saw a change in the horse’s behavior and 5 percent thought that the supplements made their horses wilder.
The researchers conclude that horse owners are willing to use purported calming aids with no scientific proof of efficacy.
Read more at HorseTalk.
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