It depends on what's causing the headshaking.
Horses can shake, toss or flick their heads for lots of different reasons, and Buck Off isn't a treatment for headshaking itself.
The first step is understanding why your horse is doing it.
What can cause headshaking?
Occasional head tossing can be behavioural or associated with excitement, tension or frustration.
But persistent or repetitive headshaking can have an underlying physical cause. Potential triggers can include discomfort associated with the teeth, ears, eyes, tack or upper airways, as well as allergies or irritation.
There is also a recognised condition called trigeminal-mediated headshaking, where the trigeminal nerve becomes hypersensitive and causes abnormal sensations or pain around the horse's face.
You may see behaviours such as repeated vertical head flicking, rubbing the nose, snorting or appearing as though something is irritating the horse's face.
Some horses are also noticeably worse during exercise or at particular times of year.
If your horse is displaying persistent or unexplained headshaking, we'd recommend speaking to your vet rather than assuming it's behavioural.
So where does Buck Off fit in?
Buck Off is designed to support horses that are tense, stressed, spooky or over-reactive.
It isn't designed to treat an underlying medical cause of headshaking.
However, there's an important distinction between headshaking as a medical problem and a horse that occasionally tosses or shakes their head when they become tense, worried or over-excited.
If you've investigated the behaviour and your horse's head movements appear to be associated with tension or over-reactivity, Buck Off may provide useful calming support.
What if stress makes my horse's headshaking worse?
This is where there may be a role for additional calming support — but we need to be realistic about what we're trying to achieve.
If a horse already has a diagnosed headshaking condition and becomes significantly worse when they're tense or stressed, supporting a calmer mental state may potentially help with that aspect of their management.
But Buck Off isn't treating the underlying condition.
Any improvement in stress-related behaviour shouldn't be taken as evidence that the cause of the headshaking has been resolved.
Don't try to calm away a symptom
This is probably the most important point.
If your horse has suddenly started headshaking, does it frequently, appears uncomfortable or the behaviour is getting progressively worse, don't simply add a calmer and see what happens.
Investigate it.
Once physical causes have been considered, if you're left with a horse that also becomes very tense, anxious or over-reactive, that's the part of the picture where Buck Off may be able to provide additional support.
Buck Off typically takes around 7 days to start working and needs to be fed consistently.
The question isn't simply:
“Will Buck Off stop my horse shaking their head?”
It's:
“Why is my horse shaking their head?”
Answer that first, and you'll have a much better idea of what support they actually need.