Providing dosing guidelines for herbs in animals is not straight forward. Recommended herb doses vary widely for both humans and animals. There are many reasons for this, including:
- Herbs often have wide therapeutic windows
- Herb potency and patient sensitivity varies greatly
- Herbs are complex substances and difficult to standardise
- The same herb can be used at different doses for different applications
- Medicine is an art, as well as a science, with many schools and levels of mastery
Factors affecting herb potency
- habitat
- cultivation
- harvesting
- processing
- storage
- formulation
Factors affecting dose:
- animal factors
- species
- weight
- age
- lifestyle
- nutrition
- health status
- route of administration
- disease factors
- acute, subacute, chronic
- severity
- level of disease
- herb factors
- herb formulation
- concentration of extract
Sources of information on dosage:
- clinical experience
- historical veterinary texts
- ethnoveterinary data
- animal research
Dose guidelines
Tinctures
(1:2, 1:3)
- human: 1.5.0ml – 5.0ml, 1 – 6 times daily
- dog (10kg): 0.5ml – 1.5ml, 1 – 6 times daily
Dried herb
- human: 3g – 10g, 1 – 6 times daily
- dog (10kg): 1g – 5g, 1 – 6 times daily
- Animal Factors
- Plant Factors
- Environmental Factors
- Herbalist Factors