Have you thought about just going to a vit e pellet?
I feed this. https://www.scahealth.com/p/ultracruz-equine-natural-vitamin-e-plus-horse-supplement
It’s low volume and palatable. Might make things a whole lot easier?
Looks like something I might want to switch to. On their website it says there is no added selenium, which is great. Yes, using a pellet would make things a whole lot easier, although I still have the problem of pieces falling through the hay and having the horses ignore the stuff at the bottom of their tub. Also, I am now so invested in my quest to make a horse cookie that I want to keep at it until I figure it out.
I kind of leaped into this supplement thing without asking the right questions; I simply asked the vet for a high-quality product recommendation. He recommended Kentucky Performance products and said to be careful not to use a supplement which includes selenium, because a high dose could cause selenium overdose/toxicity. So I simply bought a small tub of another brand of Vit. E from my feed store (which has additives which resemble a finely-milled grain chaff – the horses like it) while I was waiting for delivery of the Kentucky Performance product through Smartpak. So now I need to use up both tubs since I spent billions and billions of dollars for it.
After reading your post I was a little excited to check out the Kentucky Performance Elevate Vitamin E which I have not yet opened, hoping that large tub might contain a pelleted version, but no: it looks like I bought several kilos of cocaine – without even a speck of tasty grain chaff. And as a side irritation, it indicates that 1 scoop weighs 7 grams and equals 1,000iu, BUT there is no scoop included in the tub, nor is there any indication of the volume of a scoop. Oh well. I have a cheap cooking scale. I’ll figure it out, and just hope no one wanders into my kitchen while I’m weighing a pile of fine white powder.
After I get through this, I will definitely look into a pelleted product and just try placing a couple of smaller tubs in with the horses, tubs which would only be for pellets and/or supplements. I actually had been feeding them a pelleted Vitamin E, but I switched to a senior feed with a smaller amount of Vitamin E because I was concerned that the barn worker might be overfeeding the other product or that it was falling through the hay and getting ignored.
Thank you for your advice, Simkie. I feel kind of like an idiot working through this issue which should be simple.
It is certainly easy to get lost in the world of vit e supplements!
The Santa Cruz options are the same d-alpha-tocopherol acetate as the Elevate powder, but they are muuuuucho less $$:
Santa Cruz vit e powder: 11 cents/1000iu
Santa Cruz vit e pellets: 15 cents/1000iu
Elevate powder: 43 cents/1000iu
You sure pay a bunch for the name!
The pellets really do work great for my crew; I hope it’s able to simply life for you, too! :yes:
Here you go: info might be a bit old but good start for vit e price comparisons: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HyzecjwZzxHj3keS5_fQ3aYEvXDU9IBxb5smQAYfslA/edit
I used Horsetech to get 10,000IU/day into my guy. It was a custom vit blend and just a couple oz per feed.
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I just assumed the Elevate was of a superior quality. I did notice the price differences but since the vet recommended it, I bought it. Has anyone read any science showing that brand to be superior? If it is not, I wasted a huge amount of money.
After typing this, I did some searching and found this interesting article from Michigan State University. In this section I am quoting, it decribes the potency differences, or I should say, biopotency. I need to re-read and digest this, but I suspect the Elevate may be worth the additional cost:
https://cvm.msu.edu/research/faculty…n-e-supplement
WHAT TYPE OF VITAMIN E SUPPLEMENTS ARE AVAILABLE?
The only equine vitamin E supplements currently available contain only alpha-tocopherol. Alpha-tocopherol can be obtained from natural or synthetic sources, but the chemical structure of each is different. Natural alpha-tocopherol is composed of one isomer (d-α-tocopherol [RRR α-tocopherol]), and it is the most bioactive form in animal tissues. Synthetic alpha-tocopherol is a mixture of eight isomers (dl-α-tocopherol [all-rac-α-tocopherol]), of which only one is identical to the natural isomer. These eight isomers vary greatly in relative biopotency. Furthermore, when synthetic or natural alpha-tocopherol is formulated as a feed additive, it is manufactured as an esterifed form (alpha-tocopherol acetate) to prolong shelf life. In order for alpha-tocopherol acetate to be utilized in the horse’s body, that ester has to be removed and the alpha-tocopherol made water-dispersible by the action of bile salts (micellization). These additional steps may limit alpha-tocopherol acetate absorption in horses. It is important to realize when interpreting studies that the absorption and metabolism of alpha-tocopherol in healthy horses may differ from the metabolism of alpha-tocopherol in deficient horses.
To account for differences in biopotency, the relative strengths for different forms of alpha-tocopherol are expressed as international units (IU) in which 1 mg of synthetic acetate equals 1 IU, 1 mg of natural acetate equals 1.36 IU, and 1 mg of natural alcohol equals 1.49 IU. Therefore, based on human and rodent studies (which may not apply to horses) relative to synthetic vitamin E (dl-α-tocopheryl acetate);
- Natural-source alpha-tocopherol acetate (d-α-tocopheryl acetate) is 1.97 times more potent.
- Natural-source alpha-tocopherol alcohol (d-α-tocopherol) is 2.52 times more potent.
- Water dispersible liquid formulations of alpha-tocopherol are about 6 times more bioavailable.
NanoӢE, Kentucky Equine Research, Versailles, KY Elevate WS, Kentucky Performance Products LLC, Versailles, KY Emcelle, Stewart Products, Bedford TX
I also called Kentucky Performance Products and they said a scoop for the Elevate Maintenance Powder is 3/4 tablespoon, so 5,000iu is just a hair less than a quarter cup. I’ll just round it up. I did weigh it and came up with that same number but I wanted to double check that I was doing it right. They are mailing me a scoop, which is nice.
MY COOKIE PROJECT IS DEAD
As for the cookies, the woman I spoke to with Kentucky Performance Products said not to premix the powder with anything wet or with oil unless it was going to be fed right away. She said I could mix up a few doses ahead of time with senior feed because it is dry. So that puts the kibosh on my cookie project, at least as it relates to Vitamin E. I might still mess around with a simple treat recipe which would be fun to give for Christmas gifts.
Look at the third tab on the sheet I linked to above - biopotency chart there which came from KEP
Thanks. It took me a minute to figure out how to view that.
Did you do all of that research? I keep editing this post as I re-read your table and comprehend a little more. This whole thing is complicated!
Yes - when my guy was Dx with PSSM and shivers I went into research mode and made this spreadsheet. I have shared it around a lot and made it editable at one point - I believe some folks added info. Some folks also deleted info in a less than helpful way, so I had to re-add… anyway, my guy is gone now and the info is a couple years old so may need updates. The sheet is editable again!
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Elevate powder and the Santa Cruz products are exactly the same active ingredient.
The liquid Elevate carries higher potency, but if you need that, there are other (cheaper) options like Emcelle.
I recently pursued a variety of treat disguises for a very picky gelding with little luck. I then found these and my life became so much easier: https://www.smartpakequine.com/pt/dimples-horse-treats-with-pill-pocket-21869?_br_psugg_q=pill+pockets
Why couldn’t you just put a bit of honey on a slice of bread, sprinkle the powder on, and fold it over to stick? edited to add that I just realised that you are talking about a quarter cup of powder, so that’s a lot to try and incorporate/hide in anything that you would be hand feeding.
Yes, the quantity makes it difficult, plus, I have to double that for two horses. Part of the initial problem I was trying to solve was to make vitamin-filled cookies that were dry, easy to store next to the hay (outside) and held their shape without falling apart when handled. I wanted that cookie form so that I could toss it onto their hay without it falling apart into a million crumbs, or worse, a powder, and falling into the bottom of the tub along with dust and the part of the chaff they tend to not eat. I also wanted a cookie with a uniform size so that if I am on vacation, I could have anyone – the barnworker, a family member, my friend who lives near the horses – feed the supplement very easily after hearing an instruction such as, “toss four cookies into each horse’s feed tub, so eight cookies total.”
Buttering a slice of bread with honey or even doing it the way I do it now is not super easy and fast for someone else to do, plus it’s messy. I have solved the problem more or less, but it no longer involves my original cookie idea. I am now doing what every other horse owner in the world has figured out, which is to have a separate small tub for the supplements and senior feed.
Now I need to figure out how to secure the buckets so that they stay next to the fence, so if someone else is feeding the supplements it will be easy for them and they won’t have to enter the paddock.
