Anyone had a horse low in selenium?

[Woody50]

My boy has to go on a selenium supplement after a blood test showed he is on the low side.
Im well aware how dangerous it would be to overdose on selenium. Just wondered if anyone else has had this and whether their horse had any symptoms and if it made any difference

 

[SEL]

I was talking to one of the independent nutritionists last year who said a lot of the UK is deficient and we should be supplementing. What symptoms did you see?

 

[Woody50]

I was talking to one of the independent nutritionists last year who said a lot of the UK is deficient and we should be supplementing. What symptoms did you see?

To be honest i dont know if it is the problem but he would occasionally stop out hacking and not want to go forward, even when in company. SOmetimes seems stiff when starting out. Other times hes quite forward, its fairly intermittent. His breathing is quite heavy too. I asked for a blood test just to rule things out and i asked for selenium and vit E to be checked as i know our area is low in selenium

 

[Winters100]

I have seen this several times. Usually when an area is low in selenium (found in grass roots) then you will see it in many horses, at least this is what my vet told me. I have had in 2 of mine with no symptoms, but a friend had an older horse who was lacking in this and he was very poor, which they attributed to low selenium and said that it improved after supplements. I was not closely involved in the case though. Good luck with it, I hope that you fix things easily with the supplement.

 

[Meredith]

Years ago a friend had a horse very low in selenium. The vet gave the horse an injection and told friend that a supplement would never be able to boost the levels quickly enough. I don’t know if a supplement was used in the years after.

 

[spacefaer]

As a teenager, I had a horse that tied up (azoturia) I was told by the vet that he was selenium deficient and we lived in an area with low selenium levels in the grazing.
I was advised to feed alfa-a as a source of Vit E and selenium (you need the 2 together for digestive purposes)
He never tied up again.

 

[Dexter]

To be honest i dont know if it is the problem but he would occasionally stop out hacking and not want to go forward, even when in company. SOmetimes seems stiff when starting out. Other times hes quite forward, its fairly intermittent. His breathing is quite heavy too. I asked for a blood test just to rule things out and i asked for selenium and vit E to be checked as i know our area is low in selenium

Id test for PSSM. That sounds like PSSM symptoms.

 

[Woody50]

Id test for PSSM. That sounds like PSSM symptoms.

I have done PSSM 1 test and it was negative

 

[huskydamage]

When I bought my horse the owners said her blood test was low in selenium so thet fed her a supplement. I carried on feeding it for a while, but did some research (OD on selenium side effects are scary ?) and it appears there is more of it in the soil in the area I live then where she came from, so hopefully she gets more out the grass now. Most of the feeds I use have some in anyway I don't feed it as a supplement any more