I get Natural Vit E gel caplets from Swansons Vitamins. I get 250, 1000 iu gel tabs for $36.99. They always have these with a buy1, get 1 free and free ship deal. So I get 500 caplets for $37. Daily requirement for horses is 2000 iu, I think. My horse was slightly low in E, so vet said supplement 2 pills for a month and then 1 pill (1000iu) after that. I put the gel tabs in my horse’s feed tub, add a handful of water and they’re melted/dissolved after about 30 min, so I just make sure I put them in the tub at least 30 min before the evening grain.
Same here - my order is water, feed (usually RB with a little alf pellets) then supplements get added, no flyaway poofing.
Yeah, I do that sometimes. It’s just not as convenient with my routine. I could eliminate the need with the pellets 
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Shoutout to santa cruz because they randomly sent me a full-size bottle of that horse wash that hooks up to the hose as a ‘sample’ when they rolled it out last year. Have ordered from them a ton since.
Oh, also, for anyone super brave:
Haha me too! They sent that to a lot of customers. That stuff is AWESOME!! I think I started a thread on it at the time, or someone else did and I commented, lots of great comments on that product.
if you are buying for just one horse and only giving 1,000 iu a day, be sure to check the products life once opened, I bought the large container of Elevate for my 2 horses and when reading thru questions on the Smartpak site they gave a rather short life once opened. I do like the Smartpak pellets that are 2,500 iu a scoop. Easy to feed and my gelding gobbles it up. Still have my other horse on Elevate just buying smaller containers
Stable Masters Choice all natural Vit e. No fillers, all pure. 1/2 tsp is 1000 iu, which is a horse’s daily requirement… it comes wth dosing for breeding, growing, hard work, etc. $70 Canadian for 140 day 1000 iu doses, based on 1 iu/ KG of body weight. It has virtually no flavour and is such a small dose every single one of my horses eat it, even Mr Picky Picky who gets 10,000 for EPM!
haffhalt@gmail.com
The daily requirement is minimally 1IU/lb, and may prefer a higher min of 2IU/lb. That’s just for a normal healthy horse.
Are we still thinking the SC is the best, most bioavailable option? I’m going to start supplementing for a horse that was diagnosed with lyme, and sorting through my options. My vet suggested KER soluble, but it is not cheap! Horse would be on 4000 iu a day.
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SC is the cheapest option for natural vitamin E, which is more bioavailable than synthetic vitamin E. I don’t believe SC is more bioavailable than other natural options.
I am a formulations chemist so my day job is literally looking at this kind of thing. Generally, anything that is presolubilized will have better bioavailability than something that has to dissolve first. Depending on the molecule, an/or the solution media and the solid component properties, it may or may not be a significant difference. The difference will be more noticeable for larger doses as well.
This is probably the most comprehensive paper on Vitamin E absorption in horses.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1939-1676.2012.00994.x
Santa Cruz is d-alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate
Ker Nano-E is d-alpha-Tocopherol
Both forms are more fat soluble than water soluble, but Nano-E has been specially processed to make a water soluble formulation that improves the bioavailability by as much as 6 fold over synthetic, and 3 fold over d-alpha-tocopheryl acetate.
https://ker.com/antioxidants/nano-e/
So, I would say, the sciences supports the Nano-E. Whether the increased cost is in line with the benefit will depend on your situation and why you are supplementing. It may be worth doing some blood tests to determine if the SC will get blood levels where they need to be.
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Very interesting and great to hear from someone in the field!
What do you think about plain flax as a source of Vitamin E?
From what I can find, a cup of flax seed contains 0.5 mg Vitamin E, which is equivalent to 0.75 IU. That’s a lot of flax seed to feed to reach 1000-2000 IU RDA for most horses.
A cup of flaxseed oil contains 38 mg vitamin E or 57 IU, so better, but still not really a viable option.
ETA - I love to feed flaxseed for the omegas, though
For the water-soluble E products (Elevate W.S. is another), it MAY be good to use those for those issues where things are acute - recovering from Lyme or EPM, for example. I don’t know that anyone but the horse can tell you if they’re really worth it. But for sure some horses do respond better to the water-soluble forms at some point, even if they can then be maintained on the fat-soluble forms down the road.
But for the average horse? Not worth it unless he shows he needs WS to maintain healthy blood levels.
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Thank you! My vitamin/mineral supplement is 1500 IU of vitamin E so we are probably good.
I have samples available of the UltraCruz Natural Vitamin E Plus (pellets) if anyone ever wants to try it out.
As far as SC being the best option, I learned from another poster here that Santa Cruz Animal Health is a division of Santa Cruz Biotechnology, which has a well documented history of cruelty to animals. They paid the largest ever fine for animal cruelty under the US Animal Welfare Act a couple years ago. The complaints against them come from the USDA and a community of scientists that engage in research that involves animals or animal-derived biologics, not from ra-ra animal rights activists. Mistreatment of animals on that scale loses a corporation my business, so for me they’re not the best option. Just posting in case that’s a consideration for anyone who might read this thread looking for Vit E product information. Disregard if it’s not a priority for you.
I still use the (non-WS) Elevate maintenance powder. It comes in at about $0.36 per 1,000 IU depending on where you buy it (SC is about $0.14). That puts Elevate just under the best price I’ve found for human Vit E gel caps (d-alpha tocopherol). I’d certainly be curious if anyone has a recommendation for a decent lower-cost natural vitamin E supplement other than Santa Cruz…
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Stable Masters Choice all natural Vit e. No fillers, all pure. 1/2 tsp is 1000 iu, which is a horse’s daily requirement… it comes wth dosing for breeding, growing, hard work, etc. $70 Canadian for 140 day 1000 iu doses, based on 1 iu/ KG of body weight. It has virtually no flavour and is such a small dose every single one of my horses eat it, even Mr Picky Picky who gets 10,000 for EPM!
haffhalt@gmail.com
Spring Valley human gelcaps. The delivery method may not be ideal for some horses, but many will eat even the 1000IU size without question.
Dosing is 1-2IU per pound body weight, for the generic healthy horse.
1000IU is too low for many horses as a daily requirement. It may be fine for a 1000lb horse who’s getting 500IU from his feed, or getting some decent grass time, as a supplemental dose.
