07/22/2024
A traduire en français. Mais vaut la lecture. Nano E disponible ici. Je vais aussi partager les recherches sur det produit🙂
Good read! Nano E available here. I will also add in their research in comments.
Fresh pasture provides an abundance of vitamin E but hay is devoid of vitamins after harvesting.
My horses have always been on VE supplementation during the winter & since moving to Arizona they have been on it full time.
However as of late I’m learning it’s not enough. 😖
The NRC recommends a daily intake of about 1000 IU per day for the average horse in light work, although many experts insist this should be higher.
I typically provide 2-3000 IU to my horses depending on their workload however after my best boy Prowler displaying odd and unusual behavior, off to the vet we went.
Over the last few months he has been becoming unpredictable, overreacting at the smallest thing, feeling out of control even at a trot & exploding for no reason (the latter resulted in bucking me off very badly).
After cervical xrays, ultrasounds, THO & hyoid scopes, the vet came up with nothing. But she agreed something was “wrong” as Prowler seemed to have vision impairment & failed his baseline neuro exam.
We started with running blood work for EPM which came back negative, so her next idea was testing for Vitamin E through which we uncovered he is dangerously low in this essential piece of nutrition. 🏥
Symptoms of VE deficiency that look like other common problems:
🩺Eye & vision changes aka: becoming spooky, reactive or nervous
🩺Muscle pain & stiffness: we often reach for the magnesium here
🩺Dry/damaged coat: more omegas are typically toted as the answer
🩺Neurological problems: often we reach for trial treatment of EPM & Lyme.
Untreated - vitamin E deficiency can cause severe issues including permanent vision problems as well as equine motor neuron disease and equine degenerative myeloencephalopathy (this is fatal).
Although we finally have a direction of Prowler’s problems, now begs the question if we found it soon enough. For me, as the ever advocate of prehab & prevention, it feels like I’ve failed my horses once again by having to learn the hard way.
He’s now on 10,000IU of natural VE per day and we will retest in 3 months 🙏 Natural VE is also the key, with liquid form being more bioavailable than powder, but both are better than synthetic. If you do feed a powder it is essential to feed an oil alongside it for optimal absorption.
Running testing for vitamin E will become a regular part of my veterinary workups for all my horses - how about you?
