Getting enough E

appellativo · Getting enough E

I give my horse 1/2 cup ground stabilized flax per day. I'm wondering if this provides adequate amounts of vitamin E (she is on free choice hay during the day and gets about five lbs. of an economy feed daily). There is not much grazing, just some scrubby short weeds.

Just wondering if I should look into a vitamin E oil.

Autumn

My friend is struggling with Vit E deficiency in her horses. she is now feeding 10,000 IU a day. her horses suddenly lost weight and started shifting their back feet, it really makes your horse feel terrible and achy, The vet told her he thinks it is why one of her horses bucks so much. It looks like they caught it in time, but if you don't it can cause irreparable damage. You might try adding some Vit E pills. They cant hurt.
Most horses who only get fed hay & pelleted feed with little or no acess to pasture are at risk as Vit E does not store well in hay.

Look up UMND in horses for more information.

karmikacres

Horses who are not on grass need 2 IU per pound so 2000 IU for a 1000 lb. horse. According to Dr. Kellon, E needs to be fed with fat and preferably oil. We feed our horses Vit. E 1000 IU Gelcaps from Sam's Club. They are large so a lot of horses won't eat them but we haven't had any problems. Dr. Kellon also recommends the Liquid Vit. E from Uckele.

I guess I have not answered your question though... flax is not a significant source of Vitamin E. It is used for its Omega 3 & 6's - the ratio in flax most closely matches that of grass.

Karen

appellativo

I've read that it is a good source, but nobody ever seems to say whether it's an adequate source...I'm awaiting an answer from the product manufacturer but am leaning towards the uckele vit e oil or the cocosoya oil which has both the vit E and the oil....

Since I made sure the horses had a loose free choice salt+mineral (moorman's grostrong), I've noticed that her coat looks nicer. Incidentally I've also added lecithin (I had a big tub of it sitting in my fridge and figured somebody should eat it) and some anti-inflammatory neutraceuticals (quercetin, turmeric and larch arabinogalactan, which are the active ingredients in Aller-Check for horses). I was hoping this would help with her itchiness and antiinflammatory reactivity to the insect bites (flies, mosquitos and culicoides midges). Between that and the flyspray she's doing okay. She never has a severe reaction (like hair loss or oozing crusty skin), just a little bumpy skin and tiny hair loss, but she just seems so itchy and demands that I scratch her here, then there, then here again, and I can hardly leave without her chasing me down to scratch her itches!

I bet the vitamin E would be beneficial anyways. I'll check it out.

Julie

I hope you all add selenium as well!

karmikacres

Leah

I have never heard of flax as a source of E.

I understand that horses on grass do not need E-those on minimal grass/hay only will need supplementation.

Do NOT randomly add selenium just because you add E! You need to know how much selenium is already in the diet first.

Horse Gypsy

I think Dr Kellon does recommend Flax for itchiness-- something about the omega 3s.

Clarissa

I just went to look at the ingredients of the premixed extruded feed I used last year. It is supposedly the best of the premixes available here.

It said 165mg Vit E per kg. An adult full sized horse in full feed needs 4kg plus correct weight of lucerne etc daily. So that would be 660mg (milligrams) daily at best. Plus whatever is in lucerne hay.

What I'd like to know is the conversion table of mg's to IU's. 'Cos 660 sounds a lot lower than the recommended 2000IU's for a 1000lb horse.

appellativo

clarissa that very problem (of conversion) is what keeps me from understanding what values horses need and how I can get it to them! I gave up trying because I can't figure out how to DO ANYTHING with all the information...I can't translate it into anything I can USE!

That, and I STILL haven't gotten my hay analyzed yet.

peachpie

appell, I too have a hard time translating into what I am already doing. I am really interested in this discussion of E. I use Delta, Alaska brome (I think) hay, 2 salt blocks, water, and 20 minutes of nibbling new green grass which has miraculously appeared this week. He's healthy and dappled. But where is the E? How much selenium does he get in the above program. What does he need in the way of macro or micro anything? Yikes.

Horse Gypsy

"Vitamin E is virtually nontoxic,
and if there is ever a place where I would tend to err on the side of caution it's with vitamin E. 2 to 5 IU
per pound of body weight is wise." Ellenor Kellons NRC course.

oldmac_donald

www.feedxl.com

Don't know if its for Aussies only or what, but it was written in conjunction with an Australian equine nutritionalist. I found it amazing - my girl is 8 months pregnant and all the nutritional topics in the world just made my head spin - that and I was worried about not enough copper, selenium and zinc (skin and hoof problems...!)

So I plugged in my feeds and supps... guess what was missing? Zinc. Copper. selenium. HMMMMM!

I now use a different, less-iron supp - and only have to use half the recommended amount. My feeding regimes has just... decreased. I planned diets for mare and foal from now until weaning time - I know just what to feed, when! Even taking my Dec holiday into consideration. Well worth it.

Oh, the so-called all-in-one supplement that is very popular in Aus... loads of iron, and unless you feed the entire bag, it won't do diddly for the big head problem in FNQ. Turned out my horse was not getting enough calcium, even being fed the recommended amount for counter-acting bighead - and we aren't even in a real problem spot because the grass is not pasture here, and the horse gets handfed on non-bighead grass hay!

I recommend KER's Nutriquin. It's my new best friend. That, DCP/dolomite mix and lucerene hay - plus free choice Rhodes hay - gives my horse everything she needs, except salt. She has a salt cube for that. Actual salt, I mean :D And even at 8mths pregnant, she is only needing half the recommended dose of nutriquin. Anymore would be a mineral overload

appellativo

Hey I tried that FeedXL thing, that's really cool! It's free right now, so if you want to try it out, it's neat!

I plugged in as best I could what she is getting, and it did say she is definitely low in vitamin E. Since Her mineral/salt is free choice, I had to guess her daily consumption and I guessed 2 oz and it said she was low in iodine and salt, but that could just be because I don't know how much she eats of that daily. Since its available to her I'll just have to trust that she takes advantage of it (its in loose form, not a block, since horses tongues arent designed to be able to get enough from a block)

So off I go to order some vitamin E...

Clarissa

Dr Kohnke came to the next village to me during a sales trip & I took Sonny to him for a free check up. He said Sonny had sacrum problems amongst other things & gave me exercises for him.

I also had the diet I was feeding my horses analysed using that program & it came up short in lots of things. They are trying to sell their own products, there is no doubt about that. But they are very good products none the less.

I bought a 3kg bucket of the one he recommended for this area & it did make a big difference to my horses quite quickly & I was only giving them half the dose rate. But each time I ordered more it would get sold to someone else before I was able to go collect it at the saddle shop.

Now I just can't afford it, plain & simple. It is quite expensive although it does reduce the overall feed cost. So I would go back to using it when I can again afford to buy horse feed.

appellativo

clarissa are you talking about the feedxl program? I wasnt aware there was a product associated with it. I saw no mention of it on the beta version I tried. (?)

oldmac_donald

I tried that stuff too Clarissa, and found it to be lacking, compared to the Equilibrium and definitely to the KER Nutriquin.

I paid $50 for 3kg of Nutr. I feed... 30g/day for an 8mnth preg mare, plus 60g DCP/dolomite which is like.. $1/kg to make.

I was feeding 60g/day of Kohnke's own when the feed store ran out of Equilibrium (recommended). It cost me $36 for a three week supply (1kg). Not impressed, compared - she got scald AND thrush whilst in that period. Granted we had bad weather, but not the right time of year for either of those ailments right now.

Back on Eq. $30 buys you 5kg, feed 70g/day + Ridley's Tropical Calm (cardboard pellets) and grass hay is... perfect! Too bad I try NOT to use pellets, and has too much iron for my liking. Very cheap, and friends have their dressage horses on it and they GLOW. Bel's coat looked very nice on it, but because I don't use pellets, it wasn't quite complete enough.

When Bel goes on pasture agistment post foal (mel's post-uni holiday), her recommended daily intake (according to FeedXL) is 15g/day of Nut. Yep. HALF a foal's "recommended" intake, and she'll be a late lactating mare. That is with 1.5-2kg lucerne hay and either Speedibeet or Ridley's pellets - I trust no one but myself with sugar beet. If she's not being fed by me, she doesn't get beet pulp!

The Kohnkes came up too deficient and too expensive for me to feed, and I think the iron content was even higher then Eq.

It's a worthy investment - a day's use. You might save yourself heaps on over/under using the wrong supps like I've been doing for years *facepalm**facepalm**facepalm*

appellativo

well now I am trying to decide on a vitamin E supplement. What I DO know is that it needs to be fed with oil for digestibility. But I can't seem to find a good vitamin E supplement that is in an oil base. As it is now, I'm leaning toward adding a powdered E supplement then adding a couple ounces of uckele cocosoya oil. Any other ideas? Product recommendations which will add E but not a lot else?

appellativo

man this is a real problem. I can't find anything that has just E and nothing else. Well that is a lie. I found a guy who sells 3.5 lbs vitamin E in a VERY concentrated form. that quantity would last me probably over two years though, for my one little horse in the small quantity that she needs! AAARG!

calatar

Edited because I started a new thread http://itsaboutthehorse.myfastforum.org/sutra29014.php#29014.

karmikacres

Go to Sam's Club and buy the 1000 IU gel caps of Vit E - they work great or Uckele has a liquid E with and without Selenium.

Karen

appellativo

karmik, so do you just drop the whole pill in the feed? Do they eat it? My horse is weird about eating anything added to her grain or that is not grain (pellet)

appellativo

just an update: I bought 1000 IU gelcaps at Walmart. She won't eat them so I bite them and squeeze out all the oil onto the feed. Problem solved

karmikacres

All of ours eat them whole without issue.

Mike