Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus)

Available either as a dried herb or herbal tincture.

Please note this is a nutritional, functional horse food supplement and not veterinary medicine. See Dr Kellon's Horse Sense - 'Nutrition is not 'Alternative' Therapy.

Tincture

Our human-grade, certified organic tinctures give you a ready-to-absorb potent source of phytonutrients at the highest-strength available, for immediate absorption straight into the bloodstream and to the body’s cells.

100% certified organic pure tincture: Rosmarinus officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf, Dist / Inf 1:3 30% , Organic Cultivated

Feed Guide

• Horse - 30-40ml / Pony - 15-20ml, daily in feed.
• Always shake the bottle to disperse any sediment.
• 3-year shelf-life.

Dried Herb

Produced to ecological standards and free from agro-chemicals.

Certified organic dried herb: Rosmarinus officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf , Wild Harvested , Origin Spain/Turkey

Feed Guide

• 5g/100kg bodyweight per day, thus for an average 500kg horse add 25g daily to feed.
• 1-year shelf-life.

Functional Nutritional Value

Constituents: Volatile oils (including borneol, camphene, camphor, cineole, limonene, and linalool); flavonoids; diterpenes; triterpenes; rosmaricine; rosmarinic acid; vitamin A (beta-carotene); vitamin C; and minerals including calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, and zinc.

NB. Our range of botanicals are all grown, harvested and dried without the use of agri-chemicals, non-irradiated and GMO free - see our Quality page for Quality Management & Certification Documents. Laboratory tested for identification and compliance to the British and European Pharmacopoeia standards, and human grade.

Please be aware that if you're purchasing our dried botanicals for human use, our dried range is cut to appropriate sizes for feeding to horses.

More ...

Like oregano, rosemary is also a member of the mint family, and can also be seen growing wild over the Mediterranean region. It’s been used from ancient times by Greeks to adorn young women, the Romans used it as hedges, and it’s been found in Egyptians tombs. The species name, rosmarinus , means “dew of the sea,” alluding to the sea spray that accumulates on the leaves of plants that grow near the sea in its native Mediterranean region.

Rosemary is said to be a warm-climate sunshine-loving perennial shrub growing up to 6ft tall, and apparently it doesn’t overwinter well in sub-freezing temperatures. I’m not sure about this as we have a ginormous ever-growing rosemary bush in our back garden, and correct me if I’m wrong but I didn’t think the UK was a ‘warm climate’ country, plus if our winters are anything to go by, they’re not warm either!

Anyway, the leaves are used to make tea, tinctures, vinegars, infused oil and the all-important essential oil, which is fantastically antimicrobial – I like to shake a few drops when I’m washing my kitchen floor, and equally you can strew a few handfuls of the dried leaves over carpets for 20-mins or so before hoovering, and they’ll be wonderfully refreshed.

Rosemary is also widely used in cosmetics, perfumes, soaps and shampoos, and also in cooking, and it makes a beautiful garnish to herbal seasoning blends added to recipes for flavour and to improve digestibility. It’s also a useful food preservative to inhibit food spoilage due to its antioxidant properties. It’s wonderful aroma comes from its volatile oils (including borneol, camphene, camphor, cineole, limonene, and linalool).

Energetically, rosemary is warming, drying, stimulating, and restorative, with a pungent, sweet, and slightly bitter taste; in Ayurveda, sweet tastes are nourishing and building, while pungent tastes are warming and stimulating. Its actions are digestive, laxative, diuretic, and emmenagogue, together with nervine, diaphoretic, and rubefacient, and at the centre of rosemary’s diverging energies lies the heart and lungs - herbalist Judith Berger sums it up with “Its primary effects are felt in the head, the stomach, and the heart,” and generally to “dispel sluggishness in both body and spirit.”

It's also said to be a powerful tonic for memory, increasing mental function and acuity by increasing blood flow to and stimulating the brain. This stimulating action also has other benefits to the brain as well, being known as a folk remedy for anxiety, depression, insomnia, lethargy, nervousness, fatigue, exhaustion, stress, headaches, and migraines; it’s In a clinical study of 144 volunteers who were exposed to either lavender aroma, rosemary aroma, or a control, ‘rosemary produced a significant enhancement of performance for overall quality of memory and secondary memory factors, but also produced an impairment of speed of memory compared to controls’, (Moss et al., 2003).

Rosemary is both restorative and stimulating as a cardiotonic and warming arterial stimulant, with its nervine effects also felt in the heart, which is inextricably linked to the nervous system, relaxing and uplifting spirits and restoring the nervous system, which explains its use as an antidepressant. An in-vitro study designed to evaluate rosemary’s anti-inflammatory potential for atherosclerosis, a progressive inflammatory disease, concluded that the carnosic acid in rosemary ‘has potential antiatherosclerosis effects related to cell migration’, (Chae et al., 2012).

We specifically use rosemary for its well-known digestive actions, as it helps to relax and tone the stomach and is especially good for digestive upset resulting from mental tension, anxiety, and worry due to its nervine action. However, where it truly shines from an equine point of view is courtesy of its volatile oils, with are antiseptic, antibacterial, and antifungal, making rosemary an important ally for its antimicrobial action in the gut microbiome, as it compliments the intestinal environment and makes it unfriendly for the pathogen gut microbes to thrive in.

These same volatile oils in a hot tea or an essential oil steam will help keep colds, sore throats, flu, coughs, and chest infections at bay as well as clear congestion; it’s long history was noted to ‘dispel the foul air of disease and death’ in homes, hospitals, and streets. A study conducted on the antimicrobial potential of rosemary essential oil concluded, ‘characterisation and isolation of the active compound(s) from the rosemary oil may be useful in counteracting gram-positive bacterial, fungal, and drug-resistant infections’, (Lugman et. al, 2007).

Finally, your bit of rosemary trivia – it’s well known as ‘the herb of remembrance’ for true friendship and lovers’ fidelity. It was thought to bring luck and joy, and has played a part in ceremonies associated with marriage, love, and death for millennia, woven into crowns for royalty, tucked into bridal bouquets, and placed in coffins prior to burial. It’s also said to be a herb of protection, and ward off bad dreams – who knew?!

We blend rosemary into our BiomeTonic together with other ‘oily’ herbs to compliment the intestinal environment.

Safety

• Generally regarded as safe, but avoid feeding to the pregnant or nursing mare.