Is Your Horse’s Diet Lacking in Vitamin E?
Why Doesn’t Your Horse Have Enough Vitamin E?
We are frequently asked about how to add Vitamin E to a horse’s diet when all other nutrient requirements are being met. Vitamin E is abundant in fresh green forages and many horses will meet their daily requirement of Vitamin E with adequate intake of good quality pasture. Vitamin E declines over time in stored feeds including preserved forages. Most commercial pre-mix feeds and vitamin & mineral supplements account for this and are formulated with supplementary Vitamin E.
At times when pasture is average or poor quality, overgrazed or simply not available, diets which previously had adequate Vitamin E may become low as a result. Sometimes even with a good quality pre-mix feed or vitamin and mineral supplement, the Vitamin E levels may still not be adequate within the diet.
How FeedXL Can Help
Additional vitamin E can be safely added to diets and can be found in FeedXL’s blue ‘Balancers & Supplements’ tab under ‘Antioxidants’. Antioxidant supplements commonly contain both selenium and vitamin E. Unless the diet requires additional selenium, look for supplements which contribute only vitamin E to your horse’s diet.
To find vitamin E-only supplements, click on ‘Complete Data’ which is located below the ingredient name when editing diets or browsing ingredients and FeedXL will show you which nutrients that product contains. (See the image in this post).
Another consideration when choosing a suitable Vitamin E supplement is the form of Vitamin E to supplement with. Natural vitamin E is reported to be more effective in raising plasma Vitamin E concentrations when compared with a synthetic source. To know which is which you will need to read the manufacturer supplied information for each product on their website or product labels.
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