Those who feed high Vit E

[soloequestrian]

I've taken the advice of the Collective (Littlewills especially) and had the project horse on a high dose of Vit E for about a month now. He seems much softer in his work, but I have also changed his saddle and he's settling back into work so it's difficult to tease out the possible influences. I haven't yet talked to my vet about the Vit E but I'm aware that it's one of the fat soluble ones so it's presumably possible to overdose on it (although I've never heard of that actually having an effect). Does anyone have any advice with regard to the next step before I do chat to my vet (who's not particularly a horse specialist)? Have people used Vit E for long periods without having specific tests done?

 

[DabDab]

Depends what you want to talk to your vet about?

 

[Mynstrel]

Our emnd horse was on 10,000ui of vitamin e daily on the advice of leahurst without any particular tests, she did say to keep it to pure vit e and not one with selenium though, that's toxic at high levels. Having a chat with the vet about dosage never hurts though.

 

[Dexter]

My PSSM horse is on 6000ius a day. He blood tests in normal range. But he has PSSM and anecdotally these horses need high levels of vitamin e, so to be expected. Have you tested for PSSM? That would be my next step. Assuming it came back positive, then I would do a vitamin e screening probably twice a year to monitor

 

[paddy555]

I think it was around 2014 that my horse went onto high dose vit e. (the liquid one) He has never been blood tested for vit E. He is doing fine on it.
You can test easily for PSSM 1 but not for PSSM 2.

 

[ycbm]

My vet told me a few weeks back that he was happy for me to test my horse on 4000iu a day for 3 months but warned me that it is toxic for long periods on high amounts of the horse does not actually have a vitamin E problem.
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[soloequestrian]

horse on 4000iu a day for 3 months but warned me that it is toxic for long periods on high amounts of the horse does not actually have a vitamin E problem.
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Thanks, that's reassuring. He's not on anything like that level. I read today that Vit E degrades very quickly in forage and this winter they've been on haylage from the summer before last. I'll maybe tail the dose down a bit as the grass comes through and see what happens.

 

[ycbm]

Thanks, that's reassuring. He's not on anything like that level. I read today that Vit E degrades very quickly in forage and this winter they've been on haylage from the summer before last. I'll maybe tail the dose down a bit as the grass comes through and see what happens.

That's probably the cause of my problems too, my forage was 2019 and the vitamin E was probably gone.