Love Benefits Of Nettles As A Natural Superstar For Your Animals' Health

Stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) may not seem the obvious choice for helping your pet's health. And indeed they can cause severe skin irritation and illness if your pet rubs against or eats the plant. The Pet Poison Helpline says this about their toxicity:

"Rub against the plant.. This causes erythema (redness), swelling, and intense itching. When ingested, stinging nettle can result in profuse salivation, pawing at the mouth, vomiting, labored breathing, muscle fasciculations (twitching) and ataxia."

But when used in the right way, nettles can be beneficial. As with homeopathy, stimulating the body's own natural healing capacity can help promote good health.

How much nutrition does a stinging nettle have?

They contain many essential vitamins and minerals such as potassium, silicon, iron and magnesium, as well as a range of antioxidants flavinoids, chlorophyll.

A limited amount of veterinary research has taken place, stating nettle as helping many creatures. This includes:

• Evaluation of Anti-Bacterial and Efficacy of plant extract (Urtica urens) on Skin Wound Healing in Rabbit (2014) Evaluation ofThe present results was concluded that the uses of urtica urens extract as 25% ointment in topical skin care , healing wounds and the ability of extract to relive the contaminated wound skin by Pseudomonus aeruginosa bacteria , therefore may be used to treat the wound.
• Bulgarian Journal of Veterinary Medicine (2016) Effects of dietary supplementation of nettle root extract and pumpkin seed oil on production traits and intestinal microflora in broiler chickens "The results of present study suggest that supplementa- tion with nettle root and pumpkin oil, particularly their combination has a positive impact on broiler chickens."
• "Urtica dioica (Stinging Nettle): A Neglected Plant With Emerging Growth Promoter/Immunostimulant Properties for Farmed Fish" , Frontiers in Physiology (2018) "provides evidence for the effective immunostimulant use of nettle in aquaculture, and open new perspective for the use of U. dioica as cost-effective adjuvant therapy added to fish food to prevent diseases and increase growth"
• Kregiel D, Pawlikowska E, Antolak H. Urtica spp.: Ordinary Plants with Extraordinary Properties. Molecules. 2018 Jul 9;23(7):1664. doi: 10.3390/molecules23071664. PMID: 29987208; PMCID: PMC6100552."The use of Urtica spp. as a feed component could also positively affect the health of poultry and animal productivity."
• Effects of dietary stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) on hormone stress and selected serum biochemical parameters of broilers subjected to chronic heat stress. Veterinary Medicine and Science (2022) "It seems that dietary Stinging Nettle could be used as a feed additive in the poultry diet for improving the health status and defence mechanisms of the birds under stressful conditions."

As I explain in my veterinary research page, there's many reasons why there's limited evidence on herbal medicine - take a look here.

In the book Herbs for Pets, Gregory Tilford and Mary Wulff explain that nettles contain histamines which if used in small doses, can help with allergies in dogs.

How Can I Use Stinging Nettle To Help My Animal?

You can pick (with gloves of course) stinging nettles yourself and dry them. Or you can make as a tea.

It maybe a lot easier though if you can buy a product containing them already. Products you can get include:

• Hilton Herbs have a supplement for coat/skin (Top Coat) which includes several herbs including nettles
• Dorwest Herbs have an "Elderberry and Nettle Extract" for dogs and cats to help with skin

If you're unsure if nettles are a good idea for your animal, then do speak to your veterinary surgeon for advice first.

You can find many veterinary surgeons who do specialist in holistic medicine too. If you'd like help finding a holistic veterinary surgeon or complementary therapist for your animal then please email me at info at taranet . co. uk

Please remember that if your horse, dog or other animal is unwell. Or on any kind of medication or other supplement. Then always speak to your Veterinary Surgeon first before using any supplement or therapy. Even natural ones. To avoid any possible issues.

And do you know someone who'd find this helpful? Please share, the more we can spread awareness of the benefits of natural therapies the better! :)

Find out more about other natural animal therapies here at Taranet. Or read other articles in this Natural Pet Health Blog. Take a look at the sitemap here to explore!

About the Author

Suzanne Harris is founder of this Taranet website at www.taranet.co.uk, and also provides business coaching to horse and dog care and veterinary professionals.

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