Chinese Herbal Medicine Dose Calculator for Animals

How to dose Chinese herbal medicine in animals

Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine doses by body weight, but the number depends on three things people routinely confuse: the preparation, the species, and whether you are giving a formula or a single herb.

Preparation. Concentrated granules are conventionally given at half the raw-powder dose. Dispensing a concentrated product at raw-powder rates is a straightforward two-fold overdose, and it is the single most common dosing error with these products. This calculator makes you choose, and it lets you enter your own concentration factor when the product in your dispensary does not fit either default.

Species. The small-animal convention from Chi University and Jing Tang is 0.5 g per 20 lb twice daily for maintenance, 0.5 g per 10 lb twice daily as standard, and 1 g per 10 lb twice daily for acute Excess patterns for no more than one to seven days. Horses do not scale linearly from that: the published equine tiers are 7.5 g twice daily for maintenance, 15 g twice daily for typical cases, 30 to 60 g twice daily for severe disease and up to 200 g twice daily for a life-threatening presentation given for no more than five days. Cattle dosing in this tool is anchored to actual published trial doses rather than extrapolation.

Single herbs are different. A single crude herb or a standardised extract does not follow the formula-granule rule at all — it is dosed in mg/kg, and for most single herbs no veterinary dose has ever been published. This calculator dose single herbs separately and says plainly when the figure is an extrapolation.

The per-kilogram rates in this calculator are the standard kilogram restatement of those pound figures — 0.11 g/kg for the standard small-animal tier, and so on. Restating 0.5 g per 10 lb as a round 0.11 g/kg introduces a 0.2% difference, so a 10 lb dog reads 0.499 g rather than exactly 0.5 g. That is rounding, not error, and it is trivial next to the roughly 10% gap between the two published conventions themselves. A second published convention exists (AHVMA) giving non-concentrated 1 g per 10 kg twice daily and concentrated 0.25 to 0.5 g per 10 kg twice daily, roughly a two-fold difference from the Chi figures. Where an individual formula has its own published trial dose — Di Tan Tang, Guixiong Yimu San, Boswellia and others — that dose is stated in the entry and should take precedence over any general convention.

Dose conventions by species

Rates below are for non-concentrated raw powder, grams per kilogram per dose. Concentrated granules are given at half these figures.

Chinese herbal medicine dose chart by body weight (dogs and cats)

The standard tier, worked out for common body weights. Raw powder is the published basis; a concentrated granule is half of it. Capsule counts assume gelatin capsules filled to 0.5 g and 0.2 g. The teaspoon column assumes a level teaspoon of concentrated granule weighs about 2 g, which varies by product and particle size, so weigh it where accuracy matters. Figures are rounded to what a scale and a scoop can actually deliver; the calculator above gives the unrounded number.

All figures are per administration, twice daily. Halve them for the maintenance tier and double them for an acute Excess pattern given for no more than seven days. A cat is dosed on the same per-kilogram convention as a dog, so read the same rows.

Chinese herb dose chart for horses and ponies by body weight

Horses do not scale from the small-animal figures. These are concentrated-granule doses per administration, twice daily, from the published 500 kg tiers.

Concentrated granules, extract ratios, liquids and custom concentrations

Almost every dosing mistake with these products starts here, so it is worth being precise about what the numbers on the tub actually mean.

The concentrated convention is half the raw dose. That 0.5 is an empirical clinical convention carried through the veterinary teaching literature, and it is what the Concentrated setting in this calculator applies. It is not derived from the extract ratio, and it does not change when the ratio on the label changes.

A 5:1 label is a yield ratio, not a potency multiplier. It states the weight of raw herb that went in for each unit of dried extract that came out. Because a large share of plant material never dissolves into a decoction in the first place, the ratio measures extraction efficiency, not strength. Mayway’s published analysis of 71 concentrated formulas found a mean yield of 5.88:1 with a standard deviation of 2.44, a median of 5.12:1, and a range from 2.88:1 to 14.81:1 — and the dosing recommendation did not move across that range. Dividing a raw dose by the number on the label is therefore not a conservative shortcut; it is a fabricated calculation that can produce a five- to ten-fold underdose.

What does change the dose is carrier. Many granules are cut with starch, dextrin or lactose so they flow and measure evenly, commonly around 30% and sometimes as high as 50%. That dilutes the extract linearly, which makes it the one adjustment you can legitimately do with arithmetic: a granule that is 30% carrier delivers 70% of the extract per gram, so it needs about 0.5 ÷ 0.70 = 0.71 times the raw-powder dose rather than 0.5. At 50% carrier the factor reaches 1.0, which is to say the same weight as raw powder. The calculator will do that division for you if you enter the carrier percentage from the label.

Liquid extracts are the exception, and they work the other way round. A fluid extract or tincture ratio is a declared weight per volume rather than a yield figure, so it genuinely is arithmetic: a 1:1 fluid extract contains 1 g of herb per mL, a 1:2 contains 0.5 g/mL, a 1:3 contains 0.333 g/mL and a 1:5 tincture contains 0.2 g/mL. Select Liquid extract under Custom and the calculator computes the dose as grams of raw-herb equivalent, then divides by the stated strength to give millilitres per dose, per day, and for the whole course. Two cautions. A product described only as a “concentrated liquid” with no herb-to-liquid ratio does not give you a number to work from, and you should not invent one. And check the vehicle before you dispense: many fluid extracts and tinctures are 20 to 60 percent ethanol, which matters in cats, birds and small dogs, so ask for a glycerite or an alcohol-reduced product for those patients.

Using the Custom setting. Choose Custom, then choose whether you are holding a powder or granule or a liquid extract. For powders and granules, pick a common preparation from the list or type a dose factor relative to raw powder, where raw powder is 1× and a carrier-free concentrated granule is 0.5×. For liquids, pick the ratio from the label or enter grams of herb per mL. Whatever you set drives every figure the tool produces — the tier rates, the per-dose and daily amounts, the dispensing calculation, and the prescription sheet — and it is printed on the copied record so whoever reads it knows what basis was used. Switching into Custom keeps the rate you were already on rather than jumping, and prescription rows already on the sheet are rebased when you change it, with the tool naming which rows moved.

Every one of these is selectable. Choose Custom, then Powder, Pills / caps, or Liquid. The pill mode takes a mass per unit and a container count and asks what is inside the unit, because a capsule filled with raw powder is dosed at the full rate while a capsule of concentrate is dosed at half — that single choice is a two-fold difference and no calculator should guess it for you. If a liquid label states milligrams of extract per mL rather than a herb-to-liquid ratio, halve it before entering: concentrated extract is dosed at half the raw-herb weight, so 500 mg of extract per mL behaves like 1 g of raw herb per mL.

One rule sits above all of the above: where the manufacturer states a dose for that specific product, use it. A conversion factor is what you reach for when no product-specific dose exists.

Reducing the dose in kidney or liver disease

Nothing here has been measured. No Chinese herbal formula has a published clearance route, half-life or dose-adjustment study in a dog, cat or horse with renal or hepatic impairment. What follows is the defensible conservative position, not a validated schedule.

Renal impairment

In IRIS stage 1 and 2, dose at the standard tier and monitor. In stage 3 and 4, start at the maintenance tier, about 0.0275 g/kg per dose of a concentrated granule, and titrate up only if it is tolerated. Three hazards outrank the arithmetic: any product without a certificate of analysis free of aristolochic acid should not be used in a renal patient at all; mineral ingredients such as cinnabar and realgar are cleared renally; and licorice-driven potassium loss is far less well tolerated in a CKD cat. Frankly diuretic formulas add to an already compromised fluid balance. Stage the patient first with the IRIS kidney disease staging calculator, then set the renal risk factor here and the tool flags the entries that matter.

Hepatic impairment

Start at the maintenance tier in any patient with confirmed hepatic insufficiency, portosystemic shunting or persistently raised bile acids. Avoid the documented hepatotoxic herbs outright: Xi Xin (Asarum), Cang Er Zi (Xanthium), Chuan Lian Zi and unprocessed He Shou Wu. Avoid ethanol-based tinctures and fluid extracts entirely. Recheck ALT and ALP at two and six weeks after starting any formula in a liver patient, and treat a rise as the formula’s fault until proven otherwise. Silybin is the one single herb here with a mechanistic case in liver disease, at 100 mg/kg per day, and even that has mixed clinical data.

Teapill dosing: how many pills for a dog, cat or horse

Teapills are one of the two dominant formats in this field, and the arithmetic trips people up because the label gives a pill count rather than a weight.

Work out the grams first, then convert to pills. A standard small round teapill weighs about 0.16 to 0.2 g, so a 200-count bottle holds roughly 33 to 40 g. Teapills are a concentrated preparation, so the half-the-raw-dose convention applies exactly as it does to granules. A 20 kg dog on a standard concentrated dose needs about 1.1 g per administration, which is six to seven teapills twice daily. A 30 kg dog needs about ten. Set Preparation to Custom, choose Teapills, and enter the milligrams per pill and the bottle count from the label. The calculator then gives pills per dose, pills per day, how long a bottle lasts and how many bottles to dispense.

Cats and small dogs are the problem. A 5 kg cat needs about 0.28 g per dose, which is one to two pills, and you cannot split a teapill accurately. Round down and increase the frequency rather than rounding up, or move to a granule or capsule where you can weigh the dose. A 4 kg cat on a one-pill dose is being dosed with a resolution of plus or minus 50 percent, which is not dosing.

Check what else is in the pill. Teapill binders and coatings commonly include honey, starch, talc and activated carbon. Honey and starch matter in a hindgut fermenter such as a rabbit, and in an insulinoma ferret. Talc-coated pills should not be crushed and inhaled. And a pill you cannot crush is a pill you cannot dose-adjust.

Horses do not take teapills. A 500 kg horse on a standard concentrated dose needs 7.5 g per administration, which is roughly 40 teapills twice daily. Use bulk granules or powder.

Chinese herb dosing by species

Chinese herbal medicine dose for dogs

Dogs follow the Chi University and Jing Tang small-animal convention: 0.5 g per 10 lb (about 0.11 g/kg) twice daily of raw powder for a standard case, halved to about 0.055 g/kg for a concentrated granule. Maintenance is 0.5 g per 20 lb twice daily; an acute Excess pattern can go to 1 g per 10 lb twice daily for no more than seven days. A 20 kg dog on a standard concentrated dose therefore takes about 1.1 g twice daily. The great majority of the formulary — 159 of 174 entries — is documented for the dog.

Chinese herbal medicine dose for cats

Cats use the same per-kilogram convention as dogs, so a 4 kg cat takes roughly 0.22 g twice daily of a concentrated granule. Palatability is the practical limit rather than pharmacology: capsules or a strongly flavoured carrier usually work better than powder on food. Watch the cat-specific hazards in particular — topical camphor and borneol preparations must not be used, ephedra-containing formulas are contraindicated where there is any cardiac disease, and iodine-rich formulas must be avoided before radioiodine.

Puppies, kittens, pregnant, lactating and senior patients

Puppies and kittens. No manufacturer sets a paediatric Chinese herbal dose and no paediatric pharmacokinetic data exist for any formula. Dose on current body weight using the same per-kilogram convention, recheck the weight every one to two weeks while the animal is growing, and start at the maintenance tier rather than the standard tier. Avoid strongly draining, purgative and cold bitter formulas under three months: hepatic conjugation and renal clearance are immature, and the commonest adverse effect of these formulas, diarrhoea, is far more dangerous in a 1 kg puppy than in an adult. If you are dosing on an estimated weight, sanity-check it against ideal body weight for the breed.

Pregnant and lactating animals. Blood-breaking, purgative and strongly downward-draining formulas can cause abortion, and this is the most reliable contraindication in the whole field. Nothing is known about herbal transfer into milk for any of these formulas, so treat a lactating queen or bitch as though the litter receives the drug. Tick the pregnancy risk factor and the calculator will not present a dose without the warning attached. If you need to know where the bitch is in gestation, use the due date calculator, and the caesarean planning calculator if a section is likely.

Senior patients. Age itself is not a dose modifier; reduced renal and hepatic function is. Two age-specific points matter more than the arithmetic: polypharmacy in an older animal makes cumulative licorice much more likely, and a senior on an NSAID plus clopidogrel is the patient in whom a blood-moving formula stacks most dangerously.

Chinese herbal medicine dose for horses

Horses do not scale linearly from small animals. The published tiers for a 500 kg horse are 7.5 g twice daily for maintenance, 15 g twice daily for a typical case, 30–60 g twice daily for severe disease, and up to 200 g twice daily for a life-threatening presentation for no more than five days. That is roughly 0.03 g/kg for a standard dose, against 0.11 g/kg in a dog. Ponies and foals scale from the 500 kg figure, but there is no manufacturer-sanctioned paediatric rule — start at a quarter dose and titrate. Competition horses need separate consideration: no herbal product should be assumed safe, and no withdrawal times exist.

Chinese herbal medicine dose for cattle, sheep and goats

Cattle dosing here is anchored to actual published trial doses rather than extrapolation: Sheng Hua Tang at 70 g per cow per day as an oral drench, Gongying San at 290 g per cow per day, and Guixiong Yimu San at 0.5 g/kg as a single dose by oesophageal tube. Every verified ruminant dose in the literature was given as a drench or by tube, not top-dressed. No published therapeutic formula dose exists for sheep or goats at all, so those figures are extrapolated from cattle. Before any of this: there is no withdrawal time for any Chinese herbal formula in a food-producing animal, in any major jurisdiction.

Rabbits, small mammals and companion birds

Be honest about what a number means here. No pharmacokinetic study, dose-finding study or controlled trial exists for any Chinese herbal formula in any exotic species, and linear per-kilogram extrapolation is precisely what the exotic-dosing literature says is wrong for small, high-metabolic-rate animals. Start low and titrate. Check the excipients before the herbs: honey, sugar and starch binders in teapills are a dysbiosis risk in hindgut fermenters and a genuine problem in an insulinomic ferret. Smoke from moxibustion is hazardous to birds specifically.

Doses for the formulas people ask about most

Worked figures for the entries that get searched by name. All are concentrated-preparation doses per administration; double them for raw powder. Every one of the 174 entries has its own worked dose in the formulary table further down.

How much Yunnan Baiyao to give a dog or cat

Yunnan Baiyao follows the small-animal convention: about 0.055 g/kg per dose twice daily concentrated, which is the familiar 0.5 g per 10 to 20 lb. A 5 kg cat takes about 0.28 g twice daily, a 20 kg dog about 1.1 g twice daily, a 40 kg dog about 2.2 g twice daily. In capsules: the standard blister is sixteen 0.25 g capsules, so a 20 kg dog on 1.1 g per dose needs four to five capsules twice daily, a 27 kg (60 lb) dog needs six, and a 5 kg cat needs one. The single red pill in the centre of the blister is not part of the body-weight schedule — it is a one-off emergency dose for acute severe haemorrhage and should not be given routinely or repeated. It alters platelet function, so use caution alongside anticoagulants, antiplatelet drugs and NSAIDs, and hold it seven days before elective surgery. Veterinary trials have not shown a clear survival benefit in splenic haemangiosarcoma, and it is not a substitute for definitive management of major haemorrhage.

Si Miao San dose for dogs

About 0.055 g/kg per dose twice daily concentrated, or 0.11 g/kg raw. A 20 kg dog takes roughly 1.1 g twice daily concentrated. It is a cold, bitter, draining Damp-Heat formula for itchy inflamed skin, allergic dermatitis, joint discomfort and some lower urinary and colitis cases. It is the wrong formula, and can make things worse, in a cold or Spleen-Qi deficient patient with watery diarrhoea.

Rehmannia 11 and Rehmannia 6 for cats and dogs with kidney disease

Both follow the standard small-animal convention of about 0.055 g/kg per dose twice daily concentrated. A 4 kg CKD cat takes roughly 0.22 g twice daily, which fits in a single 0.2 g capsule or one to two teapills. Palatability is the practical limit in these patients, and appetite is usually the thing you are trying to protect, so do not hide the formula in the food you need the cat to keep eating.

Di Tan Tang dose for dogs with epilepsy

Standard small-animal dosing, about 0.055 g/kg per dose twice daily concentrated, so roughly 1.1 g twice daily in a 20 kg dog. This is one of the few entries with real trial data: an open-label add-on study in refractory canine idiopathic epilepsy. It is an add-on, not a replacement for an anticonvulsant, and sedating herbal formulas complicate the sedation signal you use to titrate phenobarbital.

Wei Qi Booster dose for dogs and cats

Standard small-animal dosing at about 0.055 g/kg per dose twice daily concentrated. It is an immunostimulant Qi tonic, which is exactly why it needs care in immune-mediated disease and in any patient on ciclosporin, mycophenolate or high-dose steroid for immunosuppression. Tick the immune-mediated risk factor in the calculator and it will flag that collision for you.

Boswellia dose for dogs with arthritis

Boswellia is a single herb, so it does not follow the granule convention at all. The published canine dose is 40 mg/kg once daily as a total daily dose, which is 400 mg per day for a 10 kg dog and 800 mg per day for a 20 kg dog. The evidence is one open, uncontrolled multicentre trial in 29 dogs. Treat it as an adjunct where an NSAID is contraindicated or being reduced, not as a replacement for analgesia in a painful dog.

Turkey tail (PSP) dose for dogs with haemangiosarcoma

Also a single herb, dosed as a total daily figure: the University of Pennsylvania dose-escalation pilot ran polysaccharopeptide at 25, 50 and 100 mg/kg per day. This calculator uses 50 mg/kg per day as the standard tier (1,000 mg per day for a 20 kg dog) and 100 mg/kg per day as the acute tier (2,000 mg per day), which was the highest arm studied. That pilot had 15 dogs and no control arm. It is not a replacement for splenectomy and chemotherapy, and it should be discussed with the owner in those terms.

Combining Chinese herbs with acupuncture

Herbs and acupuncture are the two halves of the same TCVM prescription and are routinely used together; there is no interaction to avoid. The practical problems are timing and attribution. A common pattern is weekly acupuncture for four to six weeks tapering to monthly, with the formula given continuously throughout. Because you are changing two things at once you lose the ability to say which one worked, so if that matters, hold one variable: start the herbs, review at six weeks, then add needling. Two safety points do cross over. Sedating Shen-calming formulas add to any sedation used for restraint during needling, and blood-moving formulas plus needling in a thrombocytopenic or anticoagulated patient increase haematoma risk at the point sites. Tell whoever is needling exactly which formula and dose the animal is on, because a change in the pattern picture between sessions may be the herbs rather than the needles.

Prescribing status and regulation by country

Legal status is not the same question in any two jurisdictions, and none of these products is an approved veterinary medicine anywhere.

United States

Veterinary Chinese herbal products are marketed as animal supplements, not approved drugs. FDA does not review them for safety or efficacy, and extra-label use under AMDUCA does not apply, because AMDUCA covers approved animal drugs, approved human drugs and preparations compounded from them. A herbal formula is none of those. Most manufacturers sell the veterinary lines only to licensed veterinarians and require a valid veterinarian-client-patient relationship. Liability for any residue in a food animal sits with the prescribing veterinarian.

United Kingdom

The Veterinary Medicines Regulations control anything presented as treating or preventing disease in an animal. A herbal product sold with medicinal claims and no marketing authorisation sits outside the licensed system, and RCVS supporting guidance requires unlicensed products to be used under the prescribing cascade, with informed client consent recorded and the reasoning documented in the clinical notes. The VMD does not authorise these formulas.

European Union

Cascade use in a food-producing animal requires the pharmacologically active substance to appear in Table 1 of Regulation 37/2010. Most medicinal herbs do not appear, and Aristolochia species are permanently prohibited. Companion-animal cascade use is possible with recorded informed consent.

Australia and New Zealand

The APVMA registers veterinary chemical products; these formulas are not registered. A veterinarian may prescribe an unregistered product for an individual animal under state veterinary practice legislation, but off-label use in a food-producing animal carries full residue liability and there is no withholding period to apply. State legislation, not the APVMA, governs what a veterinarian may compound or dispense.

Can an owner buy these without a vet?

Some patent formulas are sold directly to the public; the veterinary-specific lines generally are not. The distinction that matters clinically is not legal availability but that a formula chosen without a pattern diagnosis is as likely to be wrong as right, and that the genuinely toxic constituents — aconite, ephedra, strychnine, cinnabar, realgar — sit inside products sold with no veterinary gatekeeping at all. A human patent formula bought online is not a reduced-strength version of a veterinary one. It is the same material with no species-specific dose and frequently no certificate of analysis.

What Chinese herbal treatment costs, and how to source it safely

A 20 kg dog on a standard concentrated dose takes about 1.1 g twice daily, so 2.2 g a day: a 100 g bottle lasts roughly 45 days and a 500 g tub roughly eight months. A 4 kg cat at 0.22 g twice daily uses about 0.44 g a day, so a 100 g bottle lasts most of a year. That arithmetic, not the price per gram, is what drives the client conversation — the per-day cost in a small patient is usually lower than a licensed NSAID, and in a horse at 15 g twice daily it is substantially higher. Use the dispensing panel above to put a real supply period on the label rather than guessing.

What to demand from a supplier. A certificate of analysis for every batch showing the product is free of aristolochic acid, free of heavy-metal adulteration and free of undeclared pharmaceutical adulterants; a full ingredient list in writing including binders, coatings and carrier; and a declared carrier percentage, because that is the one number that legitimately changes your dose. Refuse any product listing cinnabar, realgar or an unnamed proprietary blend. Buy the veterinary lines through the veterinary channel rather than a general marketplace listing, where relabelled and substituted material is the documented risk.

Storage and shelf life. Concentrated granules are hygroscopic. Keep them sealed, dry and out of light: a granule that has caked has taken up water and is no longer the concentration you dosed against. Most manufacturers state two to three years unopened and much less once opened. Do not decant into an unlabelled pot — a granule nobody can identify is a granule an emergency clinician cannot work with at two in the morning.

Does Chinese herbal medicine actually work in animals, and is it safe?

Does it work? For most formulas, nobody knows. The overwhelming majority of veterinary TCVM use rests on traditional practice and clinical experience rather than controlled trials, and this page grades all 174 entries on that basis rather than implying otherwise. A handful have real data: Di Tan Tang in refractory canine epilepsy, Gui Pi Tang in canine thrombocytopenia, Boswellia in canine osteoarthritis, Guixiong Yimu San in dairy cattle. A handful have real negative data, including the placebo-controlled equine gastric ulcer trial that found no benefit at all. Those trials are mostly small, open-label and uncontrolled. That is a signal worth acting on in the right patient. It is not proof.

Is it safe? Not automatically. The three things that actually hurt animals are, in order: giving a concentrated product at raw-powder rates, which is a straightforward two-fold overdose; a formula containing aconite, ephedra, strychnine, cinnabar, realgar or an aristolochic-acid species; and an unrecognised interaction with a conventional drug the animal is already on, most often an anticoagulant, an NSAID, insulin, or a diuretic against cumulative licorice. All three are preventable and all three are what this calculator checks. The commonest adverse event in practice is far less dramatic: soft stool or vomiting, usually because the pattern diagnosis was wrong rather than the dose too high.

What it is not. It is not a substitute for analgesia in a painful animal, for chemotherapy in a dog with haemangiosarcoma, for an anticonvulsant in an epileptic, or for fluid therapy in a decompensated CKD cat. Used as an adjunct, with a pattern diagnosis, a certified product and a review date, it is a defensible clinical choice. Used as a replacement, it is not.

TCVM terms used in this calculator

Bian Zheng (pattern diagnosis)

Identifying the TCVM pattern rather than the Western disease. Two dogs with the same diagnosis can need opposite formulas depending on whether the pattern is hot or cold, excess or deficient. This calculator gives a dose; it does not give a pattern.

Qi, Blood, Yin and Yang

The four substances. Qi is functional activity, Blood is nourishment and substance, Yin is cooling and moistening, Yang is warming and activating. A deficiency of each produces a recognisable clinical picture and a different class of formula.

Damp-Heat

A pattern of greasy, hot, inflamed disease — moist otitis, exudative dermatitis, cystitis, colitis with mucus. Treated with cold, bitter, draining formulas such as Si Miao San or Long Dan Xie Gan Tang. These formulas are wrong, and harmful, in a cold or deficient patient.

Blood stasis

Fixed, stabbing pain, masses, a purple tongue, chronic non-healing injury. Treated with blood-moving formulas, which are the same formulas that must be avoided in pregnancy, in bleeding disorders, and around surgery.

Bi syndrome

Painful obstruction of the joints and channels — the TCVM reading of arthritis. Cold-damp Bi is better for warmth and worse in wet weather; Damp-Heat Bi presents with hot swollen joints. They take opposite formulas.

Concentrated granule

A dried decoction extract, conventionally given at half the raw-powder dose. Confusing the two is the most common dosing error with these products.

Extract ratio (5:1, 8:1, 10:1)

A yield ratio, not a potency multiplier: the weight of raw herb it took to produce a unit weight of dried extract. It is not a dose divisor. A 10:1 product is not dosed at a tenth of a 5:1 product.

Fluid extract ratio (1:1, 1:2, 1:5)

Unlike a granule yield ratio, this is a declared weight per volume and is a real conversion: 1:2 means 0.5 g of herb in every mL. A 1:5 tincture is 0.2 g/mL. Many of these products are 20 to 60 percent ethanol, which matters in cats, birds and small dogs.

Carrier / excipient

Starch, dextrin or lactose added to a granule to make it flow and dose evenly, typically 0 to 50%. Unlike a yield ratio, carrier dilutes the dose linearly, so a 30% carrier granule needs about 1.4 times the dose of a carrier-free extract.

The eighteen incompatibles

Classical herb pairs regarded as unsafe together, including aconite with Ban Xia and Hai Zao with Gan Cao. This calculator checks a whole prescription for them.

Full formulary: all 174 TCVM formulas and single herbs with doses, indications, evidence and cautions

Herbs that are genuinely dangerous

“Natural” does not mean safe, and several herbs in routine TCVM use have a narrow therapeutic index or a documented toxicity. Every formula in this tool that contains one is flagged automatically.

• Aconite (Fu Zi, Chuan Wu, Cao Wu). Aconitine is cardiotoxic and neurotoxic; overdose causes refractory ventricular arrhythmia and asystole. Only properly processed, assayed material is acceptable, and two aconite products should never be stacked.
• Ma Qian Zi is nux vomica, which is strychnine. It appears in Double P II alongside aconite, scorpion and centipede, and the manufacturer withholds the exact quantities.
• Ma Huang is ephedra. Ephedrine and pseudoephedrine cause tachycardia, hypertension, arrhythmia, tremor, hyperthermia and death, with ASPCA-documented small-animal toxicosis. It is contraindicated in cats with cardiac disease and is a competition-prohibited substance. Work up a suspected ingestion with the general toxin exposure calculator.
• Xi Xin (Asarum) is both aristolochic-acid-containing and classified hepatotoxic, and sits on FDA Import Alert 54-10.
• Aristolochic acid is an IARC Group 1 human carcinogen that causes nephropathy and urothelial carcinoma. The risk is adulteration: Guan Mu Tong substituted for Mu Tong, and Guang Fang Ji for Han Fang Ji. Demand a certificate of analysis.
• Cinnabar (mercuric sulfide) and realgar (arsenic sulfide) are deliberate ingredients in some patent formulas, notably An Gong Niu Huang Wan and as a coating on some Tian Wang Bu Xin Dan. This is intentional mercury and arsenic content, not contamination.
• Cang Er Zi (Xanthium) is hepatotoxic and neurotoxic in overdose, which matters because it sits in the common nasal formulas that get prescribed open-endedly.
• Camphor and borneol in topical salves should not be used on cats, which cannot adequately glucuronidate them.
• Licorice (Gan Cao) deserves a special mention precisely because it is not dramatic. It appears in a very large share of formulas, so a patient on two or three concurrent formulas accumulates a meaningful glycyrrhizin dose, causing hypokalaemia, fluid retention and hypertension. This calculator tracks it cumulatively across a prescription.

Chinese herb and drug interactions in dogs, cats and horses

This is where most of the real risk sits, and it is not the same question as which herbs are toxic. The interactions below are the ones the prescription builder checks across a whole sheet.

Blood-moving herbs, Yunnan Baiyao, anticoagulants, antiplatelets and NSAIDs

Blood-moving and blood-breaking formulas, San Qi (Panax notoginseng) and Yunnan Baiyao all alter platelet function or coagulation. Stacked on clopidogrel, aspirin, rivaroxaban, low molecular weight heparin or an NSAID, the effect is additive and unmeasured, because no coagulation parameter has been characterised for these products in dogs or cats. Treat the combination as a bleeding risk you cannot monitor. The same formulas are the ones contraindicated in pregnancy and in any known bleeding disorder.

Licorice (Gan Cao) with diuretics, digoxin and corticosteroids

Gan Cao appears in a very large share of classical formulas, so an animal on two or three concurrent formulas accumulates a meaningful glycyrrhizin dose without anyone prescribing it deliberately. Glycyrrhizin causes pseudoaldosteronism: potassium loss, sodium and fluid retention, and hypertension. That matters most in exactly the congestive heart failure patient on furosemide who tends to be given several formulas at once, and it raises digoxin toxicity risk through hypokalaemia. It also adds to the mineralocorticoid effect of corticosteroids. Count the licorice across the whole prescription, not per formula.

Stopping Chinese herbs before surgery or a dental

Stop any blood-moving or blood-breaking formula, and Yunnan Baiyao, at least seven days before an elective procedure. For emergency surgery you do not have that option, so tell the surgeon and the anaesthetist exactly what the animal has been receiving, and expect no reversal agent and no useful preoperative test. Sedating formulas should also be declared, because they add to premedication.

Sedating formulas with phenobarbital, levetiracetam, gabapentin and trazodone

Shen-calming formulas containing Suan Zao Ren, Bai Zi Ren, Yuan Zhi or Long Gu are genuinely sedating in some patients. Added to phenobarbital, gabapentin, trazodone or a dexmedetomidine protocol, the effect stacks. In an epileptic on phenobarbital, sedation is also the symptom you are using to judge whether the anticonvulsant dose is right, so an unlabelled herbal sedative muddies the one signal you are titrating against.

Hypoglycaemic constituents with insulin

Several commonly used herbs, Huang Qi among them, have documented hypoglycaemic activity. In a diabetic on insulin that is an additive effect with no dose-response data behind it. If you start or stop a formula in a diabetic patient, treat it as you would a diet change: recheck a curve rather than assuming the insulin dose still holds.

Iodine-rich formulas before radioiodine in cats

Formulas containing Hai Zao or Kun Bu are seaweed-based and iodine-rich. Iodine loading interferes with radioiodine uptake and can compromise an I-131 treatment. Stop them well before referral, and ask specifically about supplements when a hyperthyroid cat is being worked up, because owners do not think of a herbal formula as an iodine source.

Chinese herbs in pregnant and lactating animals

Blood-breaking, purgative and strongly downward-draining formulas can cause abortion. This is the single most reliable contraindication in the whole field and it is the one this calculator flags hardest. Mild blood-movers such as Dang Gui sit in a caution category rather than an absolute one, but the honest position in a wanted pregnancy is to avoid herbal treatment unless there is a specific indication you can defend.

Side effects of Chinese herbs in dogs and cats

The commonest real-world complaint by a wide margin is gastrointestinal: soft stool, diarrhoea, vomiting, or simple refusal of the powder. Cold, bitter, draining formulas cause it most, and in TCVM terms that is usually a sign the pattern diagnosis is wrong rather than the dose being too high. Reduce the dose, give with food, or stop and reconsider the pattern. Persistent diarrhoea on a cold formula in a patient with weak digestion is the formula telling you it is the wrong formula. Genuine toxicity is a separate problem and comes from specific ingredients rather than from the class: see the section above.

How to give Chinese herbs to a dog, cat or horse

Getting a cat to take herbal granules

Palatability, not pharmacology, is the limiting factor in cats, and most feline doses are small enough to fit in one or two capsules. The options that actually work are gelatin capsules at 0.2 g or 0.5 g each, a strongly flavoured wet food or lickable puree, or a compounded flavoured suspension. Powder sprinkled on dry food almost never works. Split the daily dose across meals rather than forcing a single large dose, and be aware that a cat that has refused a formula once will often refuse it in any vehicle afterwards, so get the delivery method right the first time.

With food or on an empty stomach, and what to mix them into

Classical practice gives most formulas between meals, but in companion animals compliance beats theory: a formula given with food that the animal actually eats outperforms a formula given on an empty stomach that ends up on the floor. Give tonifying formulas with food if they cause any GI upset. Avoid mixing into the animal’s main meal if there is any chance of food aversion, and never hide a formula in a food you need the patient to keep eating.

How long Chinese herbs take to work, and when to review

Acute Excess patterns often shift within three to seven days. Chronic deficiency patterns generally need four to six weeks before the formula can be judged. A practical schedule is a tolerance check at two weeks and an efficacy review at six. If nothing has changed at six weeks on a correctly matched formula at an adequate dose, revisit the pattern diagnosis rather than pushing the dose.

How long an animal can stay on a formula

Acute-tier dosing is a one to seven day intervention, and up to five days in horses. Standard-tier dosing for a chronic pattern can continue for months, but the pattern should be reassessed at each recheck, because the pattern that justified the formula changes as the patient improves. Continuing a cold, draining formula into a now-deficient patient is one of the commonest ways to do harm with these products.

Food-producing animals and withdrawal times

There is no established withdrawal period for any Chinese herbal formula in the United States, the EU and UK, or Australia. In the US, extra-label drug use under AMDUCA covers only approved animal drugs, approved human drugs and preparations compounded from them — a herbal formula is none of those, so there is no label to depart from. In the EU, cascade use in a food-producing animal requires the pharmacologically active substance to appear in Table 1 of Regulation 37/2010, and most medicinal herbs do not; Aristolochia species are permanently prohibited outright. FARAD cannot calculate a withdrawal interval because no residue-depletion data exist. The FDA holds the veterinarian personally liable for illegal residues.

Selecting cattle, sheep, goat, pig or poultry in this calculator triggers that warning automatically. Document informed client consent and treat the animal as out of the food chain.

Competition and racing horses

Assume no herbal product is competition-safe. USEF states it does not approve, endorse or sanction herbal products of any kind and bans a list of plants by name including valerian, comfrey, devil’s claw, chamomile, lavender and capsaicin. FEI bans by active constituent rather than plant name, so a herb absent from every list can still produce a positive through its constituents. There are no published withdrawal times for herbal products, so the conventional three-to-ten-day drug window does not apply — withdraw well beyond it, obtain the full ingredient list in writing, and record it in the medication log. One Jing Tang formula, Coix Formula, states on its own label that drug tests may return a positive result.

What actually has evidence

Every entry in this calculator carries an honest evidence note, graded against our editorial and evidence policy. Negative results are shown as prominently as positive ones.

Most TCVM herbal use is traditional and low-evidence, and this calculator says so entry by entry rather than implying otherwise. A small number of formulas do have real data, and a few have real negative data, which matters just as much:

• Di Tan Tang in refractory canine idiopathic epilepsy — prospective open-label add-on trial, 0.5 g per 10 lb twice daily for three months, mean seizure reduction 26.9%.
• Gui Pi Tang in canine thrombocytopenia — retrospective study of 74 dogs, 74.2% platelet normalisation at one month versus 21.4% on conventional therapy alone.
• Turkey tail PSP in canine splenic haemangiosarcoma — Penn Vet dose-escalation pilot at 25, 50 and 100 mg/kg/day, 199-day median survival in the highest arm against a historical 86 days, but only fifteen dogs and no comparison against chemotherapy.
• Boswellia in canine osteoarthritis — 400 mg per 10 kg once daily, 71% improved at two weeks, but the trial was open-label and uncontrolled.
• Guixiong Yimu San for retained fetal membranes in dairy cattle — 0.5 g/kg once by tube, retained membranes 4.6% versus 12.0%.
• Hai Zao Yu Hu Tang in feline hyperthyroidism — fourteen cats, greater clinical improvement than methimazole but less total T4 reduction.
• Negative: the one placebo-controlled equine gastric ulcer trial found no difference from placebo in ulcer number, severity or gastric pH. The equine anhidrosis benefit was real but small and had faded by four weeks. The Journal of Dairy Science systematic review found the herbal mastitis evidence base weak.

How Chinese herbal medicine compares

Jing Tang, Kan, Herbsmith Rx, Plum Flower and Sun Ten: what differs for dosing

For dosing purposes the only difference that matters is carrier content. Jing Tang, Kan and Plum Flower concentrated granules are essentially carrier-free, so the standard half-the-raw-dose convention applies unchanged. Sun Ten and KPC style extract granules commonly carry around 30 percent starch, which dilutes the dose linearly and needs roughly 0.71 times the raw dose rather than 0.5. The extract ratio printed on the label is not the difference and should not be used to convert between brands. Where a manufacturer states a dose for its own product, that statement outranks any conversion.

Granules, teapills, capsules, raw powder and tinctures compared

Raw powder is the published dosing basis and the cheapest per gram, but it is bulky and the least palatable. Concentrated granules halve the volume and are the default in small-animal practice. Capsules are granules you can dose accurately in a cat, at the cost of counting them. Teapills are convenient and travel well but have a resolution problem under about 10 kg. Tinctures and fluid extracts dose by volume and suit patients who will not take powder at all, but many are 20 to 60 percent ethanol, which rules them out for cats, birds and small dogs unless you can get a glycerite.

Chinese herbs versus NSAIDs for canine osteoarthritis

Be straight about this one. Meloxicam, carprofen and grapiprant have controlled trial data and a known effect size. The best herbal evidence in canine osteoarthritis is a single open, uncontrolled multicentre trial of Boswellia serrata in 29 dogs, which is a signal rather than proof. Herbal treatment is a reasonable adjunct where an NSAID is contraindicated or being dose-reduced, and it is not a replacement for analgesia in a painful dog. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

About the author