The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: sillyewe on February 12, 2015, 01:13:57 pm
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Hi
Does anybody know of any good books about the use of homeopathic medicines in sheep?
It would also be good to hear about other peoples experience of using homeopathy in sheep. I am keen to try out a more organic (not completely) form of treatment for my stock.
:)
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Can't recommend a book, but can recommend a good homepathic supplier - Crossgates Homeopathics from Skipton.
I have had successful remedies from them for all my animals - mastitis, retained placenta, fertility, cystitis, to name but a few.
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It's completely bunkum in humans let alone sheep. There is not one bit of peer reviewed science showing it has any effect.
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We have 'Homeopathy, The Shepherd's Guide' by Mark Elliott and Tony Pinkus. I think it's very comprehensive. It covers, amongst other things:- administration of remedy, basic injuries, sprains and strains, wounds, shock, other injuries, fever, tupping to lambing (pregnancy toxaemia, orf) lambing (retained foetal membrane, mastitis) the newborn lamb (navel and joint ill, diarrhoea, rattle belly) first week to weaning (coccidiosis, pneumonia, urinary calculi), foot rot, pink eye.
Under each section it lists all the remedies and what conditions they might be used for, and how.
I have used a variety of homeopathic remedies and treatments in an attempt to help elderly pet sheep with age related pain but I have no experience of treating wounds or illnesses.
Ainsworths is another homeopathic supplier - they have a good website with a farming section.
I hope this helps.
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There is a course on the use of homeopathy specifically in the farm context: www.hawl.co.uk/ (http://www.hawl.co.uk/)
I found it really useful. Any books make a lot more sense afterwards.
It's not a question of either/or - it can be used perfectly well alongside conventional treatments.
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There might be courses on it; but it doesn't get away from the fact that it is nonsense.
Sir Mark Walport, the new Chief Scientific Advisor to the government, said he would advise ministers that there is absolutely no medical benefit of homoeopathy other than a possible placebo effect.
The most comprehensive review of homeopathy was published in 2005 in the Lancet, a medical journal. Researchers compared trials of homeopathic and conventional medicines. In the bigger, well-designed trials, there was "no convincing evidence" that homeopathy was more effective than a placebo, they found. Meanwhile, in similar trials of conventional drugs, medicines showed specific clinical effects
Homeopathic remedies are made by taking an ingredient, such as arsenic, and diluting it down so far that there is not a single molecule left in the dose that you get. The ingredients are selected on the basis of like cures like, so that a substance that causes sweating at normal doses, for example, would be used to treat sweating.
Many people confuse homeopathy with herbalism and do not realise just how far homeopathic remedies are diluted. The typical dilution is called “30C”: this means that the original substance has been diluted by 1 drop in 100, 30 times. On the Society of Homeopaths site, in their “What is homeopathy?” section, they say that “30C contains less than 1 part per million of the original substance.”
This is an understatement: a 30C homeopathic preparation is a dilution of 1 in 100^30, or rather 1 in 10^60, which means a 1 followed by 60 zeroes, or – let’s be absolutely clear – a dilution of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.
To phrase that in the Society of Homeopaths’ terms, we should say: “30C contains less than one part per million million million million million million million million million million of the original substance.”
At a homeopathic dilution of 100C, which they sell routinely, and which homeopaths claim is even more powerful than 30C, the treating substance is diluted by more than the total number of atoms in the universe. Homeopathy was invented before we knew what atoms were, or how many there are, or how big they are. It has not changed its belief system in light of this information.
How can an almost infinitely dilute solution cure anything? Most homeopaths claim that water has “a memory”. They are unclear what this would look like, and homeopaths’ experiments claiming to demonstrate it are frequently bizarre. As a brief illustration, American magician and debunker James Randi has for many years had a $1m prize on offer for anyone who can demonstrate paranormal abilities. He has made it clear that this cheque would go to someone who can reliably distinguish a homeopathic dilution from water. His money remains unclaimed.
http://www.badscience.net/2007/11/a-kind-of-magic/ (http://www.badscience.net/2007/11/a-kind-of-magic/)
http://www.dcscience.net/2010/11/17/despite-the-spin-lewiths-paper-surely-signals-the-end-of-homeopathy-again/ (http://www.dcscience.net/2010/11/17/despite-the-spin-lewiths-paper-surely-signals-the-end-of-homeopathy-again/)
http://www.dcscience.net/2010/04/09/robert-gordon-university-stops-its-homeopathy-course-quackademia-is-crumbling/ (http://www.dcscience.net/2010/04/09/robert-gordon-university-stops-its-homeopathy-course-quackademia-is-crumbling/)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/04/economist-explains (http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/04/economist-explains)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10003680/Homeopathy-is-nonsense-says-new-chief-scientist.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10003680/Homeopathy-is-nonsense-says-new-chief-scientist.html)
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Sir Mark Walport, the new Chief Scientific Advisor to the government, said he would advise ministers that there is absolutely no medical benefit of homoeopathy other than a possible placebo effect. /quote]
I have had successful remedies from them for all my animals - mastitis, retained placenta, fertility, cystitis, to name but a few.
Perhaps the Placebo Effect is stronger in sheep? ;)
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Oh ... I don't know. When my son was a year old he suffered from severe dermatitis. GP tried all sorts of creams for four months and said next step was steroids. Not on my watch! Took him to Andrew Lockie (GP as well as homeopath) who prescribed sulphur tablets and within two days there was a marked reduction in redness and dryness and within two weeks back to normal. Nothing else in my son's life changed and I don't think the placebo effect works on a one year old. Also have husband who has an allergy to animal dander and is very sceptical about homeopathy. Again, remedy prescribed and a month later a marked improvement - definitely not placebo effect. Andrew enjoyed treating sceptics most of all!
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Oh ... I don't know. When my son was a year old he suffered from severe dermatitis. GP tried all sorts of creams for four months and said next step was steroids. Not on my watch! Took him to Andrew Lockie (GP as well as homeopath) who prescribed sulphur tablets and within two days there was a marked reduction in redness and dryness and within two weeks back to normal. Nothing else in my son's life changed and I don't think the placebo effect works on a one year old. Also have husband who has an allergy to animal dander and is very sceptical about homeopathy. Again, remedy prescribed and a month later a marked improvement - definitely not placebo effect. Andrew enjoyed treating sceptics most of all!
Cow's milk allergy is very common in young children, often causing dermatitis such as eczema.
It is commonly grown out of around 1-2 years old.
Its entirely possible that the wee man was just on the verge of curing himself, or maybe the magic water did help.
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Perhaps the Placebo Effect is stronger in sheep? ;)
We get a lot of rain around here and my sheep are usually out in it, so it would presumably magnify the effectiveness of homeopathic applications ;*)
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It's completely bunkum in humans let alone sheep. Ther e is not one bit of peer reviewed science showing it has any effect.
To you maybe.
But then you've obviously never tried it, so aren't actually in a position to give a valid judgement.
It is however a fact that you can't prove a negative.
You are free to have your own opinions and beliefs but please don't rubbish the views and experiences of others just because you are too arrogant to accept the fact that there may possibly be energies that are at the moment outside of our ability to comprehend.
A couple of hundred years ago people would have rubbished the idea of motor cars, aeroplanes, telephones and television. Even further back people thought the earth was flat and that you could fall off the edge. Nowadays people tend to be less narrow minded as there is new knowledge discovered every day.
So please stop ramming your ignorant and bigotted views down the throats of those who know from experience that homeopathy works.
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If nothing else, Homoeopathy subscribes to the ethic of "nil nocere" - do no harm.
If people (or sheep, or cows or whatever) are having a noticeable reduction in symptoms or ailments using it, then regardless of what YOU think, for that person (sheep/cow/whatever) its not a waste of time or money, whether science can prove it or not.
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It's completely bunkum in humans let alone sheep. Ther e is not one bit of peer reviewed science showing it has any effect.
To you maybe.
But then you've obviously never tried it, so aren't actually in a position to give a valid judgement.
It is however a fact that you can't prove a negative.
You are free to have your own opinions and beliefs but please don't rubbish the views and experiences of others just because you are too arrogant to accept the fact that there may possibly be energies that are at the moment outside of our ability to comprehend.
A couple of hundred years ago people would have rubbished the idea of motor cars, aeroplanes, telephones and television. Even further back people thought the earth was flat and that you could fall off the edge. Nowadays people tend to be less narrow minded as there is new knowledge discovered every day.
So please stop ramming your ignorant and bigotted views down the throats of those who know from experience that homeopathy works.
You can actually prove a negative and there have been many trials that have shown no benefit to homeopathy over the placebo effect, that is not to say that the placebo effect is not real and doesn't help, it does.
It is however, disingenuous to equate a scepticism of a treatment that has been assessed and has been shown to have no benefit over scepticism over proven technology. To say to an 18th century person that flight of a metal machine is possible and to have this disbelieved is very different to show them a plane in flight and have them tell you it cannot fly.
Homeopathy does no harm providing it doesn't prevent people from accessing proven treatment modalities when it doesn't work. I have a friend on lifelong dialysis as his wife wouldn't concede that homeopathy wasn't working and he wouldn't access conventional medicine till it was too late. This is an anecdote. It no more proves that homeopathy doesn't work than people who have used it and feel there was a benefit proves it does.
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If nothing else, Homoeopathy subscribes to the ethic of "nil nocere" - do no harm.
Of course this isn't true either. There is evidence of homeopathy causing harm; One case reported in the British Medical Journal described how a woman had relied on homeopathy during a trip to Togo in West Africa, which resulted in a serious bout of malaria. This meant she had to endure two months of intensive care for multiple organ system failure. In this case, the placebo effect offered no protection. That's the harm.
http://www.1023.org.uk/whats-the-harm-in-homeopathy.php (http://www.1023.org.uk/whats-the-harm-in-homeopathy.php)
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Take chances with your own health but its not fair to take chances with other peoples health or your animals health. Use medicines (of any kind) that are proven and preferably licensed. I have never seen a double blind trial that proves homeopathy is anything more than a way of parting well meaning people from their money, but I haven't looked for a few years, any genuine peer reviewed stuff out there saying it works? I have seen animals suffering from a variety of conditions that were in under homeopathic treatment at the time so my experience says homeopathy is for fools BUT I would be happy to change my mind. :thinking:
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So please stop ramming your ignorant and bigotted views down the throats of those who know from experience that homeopathy works.
It's not my views it's the opinion of the scientific world. You can believe what you wish it doesn't alter the facts.
This is the conclusion from one of the latest reviews by the Australian Government:
The available evidence is not compelling and fails to demonstrate that homeopathy is an effective treatment for any of the reported clinical conditions in humans.
Perhaps you could advise us of your scientific credentials?
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Most people try alternative treatment methods after conventional medicine has failed them, not before.
There are just as many if not more examples of conventional medicine 'not working' for certain individuals despite what would have been expected by research, as there are plenty of examples of 'scientific research' proven to be wrong by subsequent equally scientific studies (the effects of fat in our diet being only one such recent example). Aspirin is a helpful everyday medicine for the vast majority of people yet it can have serious, sometimes fatal side effects for some. It all boils down to what works for an individual and what doesn't.
Choices and decisions about which course of treatment to follow and at which point to try something else if the first course of action did not bring the results we hoped for, is tricky in the best of cases, and can be agonising in other cases; I'm sure we all have experience of that.
All of us are free to decide which way we want to manage our health, and that of the animals in our care, and I don't understand the interest behind those shouting down anybody who may want to know more about alternatives and options at their disposal, for themselves, their family or their animals. The more we inform ourselves about the optionsn available the more we can make our own informed decisions.
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Only consider that aspirin was derived from meadowsweet, digitalin from foxgloves, narciclasine from daffolis, taxin from yew .....
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"The more we inform ourselves about the options available the more we can make our own informed decisions."
Of course everyone is free to make their choice, my experiences of the options in question are that they are ineffective and therefore dangerous and not to be relied upon if there is an effective known alternative. I thought this worth mentioning so you can make a slightly more informed decision as surely everyones experiences are worth considering not just the positive ones. In many ways the negatives are more important to consider.
As regards animal health you are not entirely free to make your own choices as animal welfare law kicks in at some point.
Homeopathy is a world apart from the chemicals naturally occurring and isolated from the plants you mention M Farmer which have been proven to work.
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Only consider that aspirin was derived from meadowsweet, digitalin from foxgloves, narciclasine from daffolis, taxin from yew .....
I thought aspirin came from willow bark? However the list you mention are herbal medicines and not homeopathic medicines.
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I agree that science has so far failed to prove that homeopathy works.
That is not the same as proving that it doesn't work under any circumstances.
When I was a veterinary student, a group of my peers went to China to research the potential use of acupuncture in pets. At the time, all alternative medical practises, including acupuncture, were regarded as complete hokum by science. Many doctors and vets will now refer patients for acupuncture.
I do not find it at all hard to believe that the passage of a molecule of something leaves a trace that we cannot at the moment identify.
So, my mind is open.
That said, I would be nervous of someone eschewing a proven conventional remedy if the animal is suffering in any way that could be addressed more quickly and surely by that conventional remedy. Even fully organic farmers can get derogations from their vets to treat animals where animal welfare would otherwise be compromised.
So by all means, read up and research, use these remedies where you are not prolonging suffering in any way by so doing (but not otherwise) - and tell us what you find out and how you get on!
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The more we inform ourselves about the optionsn available the more we can make our own informed decisions.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. You can only make informed choices if you know those facts.
If you or anyone else wishes to treat yourself with 'magic water' please feel free to do so.
However, if you wish to foist magic water on children or animals in the belief that it is an effective treatment that is a different matter.
It is not my opinion, I'm not shouting down anyone; I'm giving people facts based on the evidence of some of the best scientific brains in the world;
Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England and Emeritus Professor at Imperial College, giving evidence to the Commons Science and Technology committee concluded her evidence by remarking that homeopathy “is rubbish”.
Sir Mark Walport Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor of Medicine at Imperial college, said 'my view scientifically is absolutely clear: homoeopathy is nonsense, it is non-science.'
If you or anyone else here has better qualifications than these please add your contributions to the debate.
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I have a high regard for science - I was a scientist myself once! :D - but the scientific method does have its own limitations.
So whilst I am happy that eminent scientists may choose to express the current views of science in such colourful terms, I still, personally, prefer to treat all views, and those who hold them, with respect.
With, as I said above, the proviso that no-one is prolonging any suffering of those who cannot choose for themselves.
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So whilst I am happy that eminent scientists may choose to express the current views of science in such colourful terms
Personally I see nothing wrong with eminent scientists stating clearly that it is nonsense.
I still, personally, prefer to treat all views, and those who hold them, with respect.
Well if you use that argument you must of course treat the views of Boko Haram with respect; their principal tenant being
“Boko Haram is intrinsically opposed to Western science and to Western medicine.
“It does not even recognise the existence of germs or viruses, because they are not mentioned in the Koran,”
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Hang on a sec, there's a big difference between believing that very dilute somethingorother may help you, and believing that germs don't exist and all unbelievers should be wiped out!
There have been some very good points made here, such as using a scientifically proven alternative where one exists. However, if somebody wants to try homeapathy* on themselves or their stock after conventional techniques have failed, why is that so wrong?
I'm not saying "it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you're sincere" - you can be sincerely wrong! However, each to their own, especially on an internet forum ;) .
* That was originally a typo, but it was so good, I decided to leave it in.
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When I was a veterinary student
Ooh another tas vet thats exciting! Should be tav
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A colleague and I decided to test the homeopathic theory of potentising and diluting to achieve a stronger effect. We were bitterly disappointed with our first attempt at making homeopathic whisky. Theory would have allowed us to amplify the stock bottle of teachers into many a drunken night of bliss.
With preliminary failure reflected in our sadly sober faces we carried out further research on the theory of treating like with like. Following on from that theory we decided to try potentising hangover cures..again with dismal failure. Our last attempt was to potentise mineral waters and fruit juices to treat sobriety with like for like. We still failed to get drunk.
In my second job (as a vet in ages past) I took over the running of a previously homeopathic vet practice whose owner had gone nuts. There was an impressive array of tiny bottles of 'stuff' about but also a huge jar of antibiotics which she used entirely incorrectly. And most disturbing was a collection of several tiny wax encased bottles of potassium cyanide - as a post WW2 method of euthanasia. For those interested in historical vet therapy the method was one drop in the conjunctival sac and hope the patient didn't flick it back at you!! I had the devil's own job legally disposing of enough to kill several hundred people.
A veterinary (and doubtless human) truism is that some 90%+ of our patients will get better despite treatment. That a good vet will get that up to(say) 94%, that a great vet may well make that (say) 96% and an awful lot of vets don't manage the 90%.....
Nutty homeopathic vet's grandson fell out of the apple tree and was clutching his arm and screaming. She started rubbing potentised arnica into the arm amidst more screaming - until i suggested that perhaps it would be better to take child and broken arm to A&E.
The whole point of the above is that therapy isn't the issue... it's getting the bloody diagnosis right first and knowing when you actually need to do something.
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When I was a veterinary student
Ooh another tas vet thats exciting! Should be tav
Nah, this one failed to complete. :notworthy: to those who made it all the way through training!
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When I was a veterinary student
Ooh another tas vet thats exciting! Should be tav
Nah, this one failed to complete. :notworthy: to those who made it all the way through training!
Pfft you obviously saw the light first!
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Now in actual fact this post was started as a request for a recommendation for a book on homeopathy and for people's experiences with using it on sheep. So briefly that's what I responded with.
I did not expect to get the response that I was talking rubbish. I found it rude and insulting as Henchard had no idea under what circumstances I had used homeopathic products, or indeed what the results were.
So - to give a bit of background info - I have a degree in agriculture and worked for several years at Leeds university and then at York uni on research grants. So I am not entirely ignorant of how science works, nor of what degree of proof is needed to substantiate a claim. But I discovered that the more one learns, the more one realises the total extent of one's ignorance, and there are still numerous things for which science at present has no explanation.
Now when I say I have successfully used homeopathic products, I could also add that they don't always work, any more than conventional medicine does. And if I am telling someone about homeopathy, I always add the comment that it doesn't always work instantly like taking an aspirin, so sometimes you wonder if the animal would have got better naturally anyway. But having said that, I personally believe that on the balance of things I have had significantly more successes than failures. But I still use the vet and conventional medicines for any acute problems I have with my animals. I don't just leave them to suffer and slowly die while I heat up my cauldron and consult my book on witchcraft.
So, I'm not ramming it down anyone's throat - I see it as a personal choice. I respect other people's views on the subject and consider it only manners that they do me the same courtesy.
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I would say homeopathy is just theatre. And the reason I would say that is not because science doesn't have an explanation, but because every time they take a hundred sick people and treat half of them with homeopathy and half with plain sugar pills, doing it all randomised and double-blind so the sick people don't know which they are getting and the doctors don't know which they are giving, the results are that there is no difference between the number of people who got better with the homeopathy and the number of people who got better with the sugar pill.
But, the complicating factor, to me, is that theatre often works. The placebo effect is a really powerful thing that we don't understand very well! (A scientist friend of mine, Nick Humphrey, has been studying this for ten years.) There is experimental evidence that it works some of the time even on people who are told they are getting a placebo. There is some evidence that it works on infants and animals, both indirectly by affecting the caretaker and also sometimes directly on the patient. So I can't be completely anti-homeopathy (or acupuncture, or having the local shaman paint your forehead with mud and chicken feathers) because it's not dumb to make as much use of the placebo effect as we can. As long as it's not preventing people from getting conventional medical care when it's needed.
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I thought aspirin came from willow bark? However the list you mention are herbal medicines and not homeopathic medicines.
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I beieve meadowsweet was the first plant used, willow came later. Someone, somewhere must have decided to try out brews of these plants before "science" got hold of them and analysed them. I try to keep an open mind, on the basis I think there's a lot more I don't know than I do know.
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Meadowsweet and willow both contain salicylates, that active compound in aspirin. Both existed before humans understood their potential worth so not sure one can be considered to have "come first."
Again I think we need to separate herbalism from homeopathy. Herbalism is the practice of whole plants being used for medicinal purposes and is proven to have an effect (both positive and negative like all drugs) and is the basis of modern pharmacology. Many plants contain physiologically active compounds that effect how our bodies work both individually and in combination with other compounds in the plant.
Homeopathy has already been described a number of times here so I won't repeat it. Personally I do not believe in the memory of water. All water at some point has been though an organism and even if it does have a memory then how is that separated out from all the other compounds it has been in contact with (like those in your gut and the guts of cattle!). That being said, providing that it doesn't prevent people accessing effective treatments for themselves and more importantly those dependent on them, it's personal choice.
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Homeopathy is like religion,science has proved its rubbish and does more harm than good ,I was once called in to see a Lamimitic pony by the German equivalent of our esteemed RSPCA ,the owner had been treating the pony with homeopathic remedies that " worked without fail" .The pedal bone was rotated and through the sole and the tip was gone!!! Under police questioning the owner was asked how long the pedal bone had been visible ,7 months she said quite proudly "but its getting better and going back in as I can see less and less every week "!!! The pony was euthanized and never went to pony heaven and thus happened in the 21st century !!! Homeopathy in my eyes is worse than witchcraft or maybe the same thing with a posh name !!!
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I would be loathe to assume that because you've encountered one person who neglected their pony, you can then pass judgement on every one else who uses homeopathy. The fact you believe you were told that the remedy "worked without fail" shows that the person allegedly using it had no idea what they were doing.
To me homeopathy is one tool for effecting healing, along with many other natural methods, and conventional medecine. They are none of them self exclusive. It has been previously mentioned that there are instances where homeopathy has succeeeded where conventional wisdom has failed,and vice versa.
Why are you rubbishing people who use it successfully on the basis of hearsay from an apparent idiot?