There are dozens of Vitamin E supplements for horses available on the market. Powder or liquid, synthetic or natural, with or without selenium and with or without grape extract. Do you know what is best? In this blog, we tell what you should pay attention to so that you can make the right choice for your horse.
Avoid overdose of vitamin E (and selenium)
It is possible to give too much vitamin E to your horse, so be careful with it. Overdose can cause horses to absorb other nutrients and minerals less well. Negative effects have been shown at doses five to ten times higher than the daily maintenance of 1000 IU for a 550 kg horse. Also be careful with vitamin E supplements that contain selenium. Although many horses can use a little bit of selenium, especially since Dutch hay often contains little selenium, this mineral can already be toxic in concentrations of eight times the daily dose. So pay close attention to how much selenium your horse's total ration contains (including hay, concentrates and any vitamin chunks). The recommended daily dose of selenium is approximately 1 mg per day for an adult horse.α-tocopherol is best absorbed
When you start looking for a good vitamin E supplement for horses, things quickly get complicated. Vitamin E is the main fat-soluble antioxidant found in food. It consists of eight related vitamin E compounds. Together you call this the vitamin E complex. They are four tocopherols and four tocotrienols:- α-, β-, γ- and δ-tocopherol
- α-, β-, γ- and δ-tocotrienol
Synthetic or natural vitamin E?
There are many supplements on the market that contain vitamin E. It is important to know when choosing a good supplement that there is a big difference in absorption between the different variants. The cheaper vitamin E, also called synthetic vitamin E, is poorly absorbed by horses. It varies a bit per animal, but it is usually a waste of money to feed this form of vitamin E to your horse. It is simply not absorbed into his blood, but goes out again with the manure. An example of such a synthetic form of vitamin E is dl-α-tocopherol acetate. This compound is found in various supplements available in the Netherlands. Natural or nature-equal vitamin E is much better absorbed by horses and is therefore much more useful. Both d-α-tocopherol and RRR-α-tocopherol fall under the natural vitamin E. However, it has been proven that the isomer RRR-α-tocopherol is best absorbed; this is for example in wheat germ oil. But… these natural compounds can also come from a factory. Then the product is called "natural vitamin E" because the molecular formula is exactly the same as that of vitamin E, which you can obtain from wheat germ oil, for example. But it has been made artificially. However, the absorbability is the same, so it is a great product for your horse. It would be better to call this type of vitamin E natural-equal rather than natural. Because many supplements market this artificial variant as natural vitamin E and do not indicate it. So there are 3 types of vitamin E:- Synthetic (is dl-α-tocopherol acetate): it is difficult to absorb
- Nature-equal (RRR-α-tocopherol): just as absorbable as natural ones
- Natural (d-α-tocopherol and RRR-α-tocopherol): highly absorbable