Vitamin E vs vitamin E and selenium

[Roxylola]

Supercob is on vitamin E, afterhe showed a tying up reaction after being fed mollichop last year. He was also struggling with his canter work (still his weakest pace).
We've seen improvements from cutting sugar, adding high levels of vitamin E and generally managing as a myopathy.
Hes not mine, so running tests or not is not my decision.
We are coming to time to pick up some vitamin E again. Shopping around lots of E supplements are combined with selenium. Obviously high dosing vitamin E with selenium could lead to overdosing selenium.
Is it worth getting vitamin E and selenium to add to a solo natural vitamin E - so feeding E and S at the recommended dose and topping up the E to an appropriate amount?
He's fed topchop 0 and baileys lo cal balancer at the moment

 

[Roasted Chestnuts]

I just bought the lone VitE powder.

 

[Roxylola]

Yeah, thats how we are at the moment. Its just so common for it to be combined with selenium I feel their must be some reason for it

 

[quizzie]

They are combined because they work synergistically......but for a horse that needs extra Vit E....you are right....get separate supplements...
Vitamin E can be given up to 10000iu daily...but most normal horses don't need nearly this much,
Selenium can be given at up to 3mcg daily, but that is from total ration and only horses in high levels of competition work need that sort of level.... most are fine on about 1mcg a day.

 

[tristar]

selenevite E is a supplement, does have iron though

 

[PapaverFollis]

He'll be getting selenium in the lowcal? I would avoid adding more. I think it helps for them to get the right amount of selenium and uk grasses are often deficient BUT you have to be careful of overdosing. I can't feed anything with selenium in because I have enough in my grass. So can't feed any commercial balancer. I think my high selenium grass does help The Beast along a bit though.

 

[Roxylola]

Thanks PF, that makes sense. He shows no symptoms of being deficient. I'll likely just stick with straight E

 

[ycbm]

I used to supplement a half RDA dose of selenium but I had a blood test done and it was too high, so now I don't give any. It's extremely dangerous stuff to overdose.

 

[SEL]

I'm in a low selenium area and vet advised supplementing my myopathy mare. So she gets 1/2 dose of a vit E / selenium mix and 8000iU of forage plus natural vitamin E.

If i run out of the combined product she gets a break from it but I cant stop natural vitamin E for more than a few days without her hamstrings going solid

 

[Rowreach]

It's staggering how many feed products contain hidden selenium. Someone once queried why I was feeding a VitE/Selenium combination (I knew why I was using it) but they didn't realise the chaff they were feeding to theirs contained selenium - it wasn't listed on the bag, only on the product info on the website.

 

[Mouse&Bay]

Natural vitamin E is much, much better absorbed than artificial. In all my costing analysis comparing price per IU, I find that human vitamin E is the cheapest. Just by the gel caps from the pharmacy, hopefully on sale, and sprinkle on the food. They will eat it with no issue.

https://thehorse.com/113532/when-do-horses-need-vitamin-e/