just because cornell charges 15.75 does not mean the vet charges 15.75.
I know because I get lyme tested often and its 150, where cornell charges 35for the test.
I cannot draw my own blood, and even if I did, after my recent experience, cornell will not speak to anyone but a vet. at least that was the department’s stand when we sent them in the lyme test. just an fyi.
my vet charges $144 for selenium…ouch. Another vet I sometimes use charges $30, but uses a different lab…and I have had numerous discussions with him with regard to normal and adequate range…the lab he sends them to says that normal range starts at .05 ppm, so a horse at .13 is normal, while the other vet ($144) sends them to a lab that says normal starts at .17 ppm and that my horse at .13 is very low. The second vet swears that since they are sent to different labs that each lab has a different normal range and you have to use the one for the lab, even if all the results are in the same units…ppm!
Quite a number of people in my area use free choice selenium and I have not heard of any problems.
I appreciated this link – it seems to be what I need, but I am having trouble understanding the numbers. I found my area – and see the mean for my county – and the min / max. Am I correct assuming that if I am in the middle of the min / max, that all is well.
Help would be welcomed… I feel like a dunce!
Nothing about selenium will make a horse choose to consume it. They don’t crave it. It probably tastes kind of awful too lol. If it’s mixed with something to make it tasty enough, it would be pretty easy to either acutely OD, or get into a chronic toxicity situation.
Se is one of those things with a narrow enough range of safety that it’s really best to force feed it so you know exactly how much a horse is getting every day.
Looking at these maps is a gauge of what’s in the soil. Not in the forage, not in the horse. Test the horse to know where he stands with the diet he’s getting.
In addition… in many area deemed sufficient on this older map, they now know they are deficient. (west coast)
Generally, “ppm” stands for “parts per million.” For minerals, this usually means the ratio of the mass of the substance to the total mass (micrograms per gram), but sometimes for liquids it might be a ratio of volumes. However since most liquids expand or contract a little depending on the temperature and pressure, (and the expansion rate for one liquid might be different than that of the solvent liquid) a volume ppm measured at one temperature might be a different value measured at another temperature. Volume and mass ppm will generally be different for the same substance.
It is difficult to say what a good Se soil concentration is because forage may uptake it differently depending on the soil pH and concentrations of sulfur or other minerals. Google turns up a number of papers about Se uptake in alfalfa but I wouldn’t want to go through all of them myself- If you have an ag. extension program near you, they may be able to give you better advice about your local minerals and what that means for your forage and livestock.
My farm was in an area listed as 0.17 No horse ever needed selenium, and all were very healthy. Many were with me for 20 years or more.
Exactly. These maps only give you a generalization of Se, and for most of us, it still comes down to testing the horse. There are some areas where it’s know that ALL forage is too low in Se, so supplementation and some regular monitoring is needed. Others have such high levels in the forage that it’s critical to not feed anything with ANY additional Se, and to regularly test to make sure things are ok. My county is a “low Se” county, but the way the horses are fed- my pasture, hay from 5 miles away - and concentrates which provide roughly 1mg Se, keeps them right in the normal range for Se in the blood.
Most everything else can be more accurately managed by testing the forage - still doesn’t matter what’s on the soil, as you’re not feeding the horse dirt 
We only care about the soil if we are growing forage, so we care about our specific pastures so we know how to fertilize and lime. But we don’t care about the soil content of the next county, or the next door neighbor, if that’s where our hay is coming from. We care about what’s in the hay, and make adjustments to feed additives based on that.
Our property is all red clay soil. There is no “topsoil” - it’s red clay from the top grain, as far down as you can dig (and having due 12’ for our basement, I can tell you it’s ALL red clay lol). Our back neighbor is downhill from us, and a good bit of her 10 acres at the very bottom has magnificent rich brown topsoil
Tastes almost like nothing, no distinct flavor, so no need to mask it. Doesn’t even have a calk-like texture like magnesium. I take it daily. Zinc, OTOH, tastes horrible and has a horrible aftertaste. Gag! Pure zinc tabs upset my stomach and can also make me throw up.
The only way to know if your horse has good levels, regardless to geography and what is fed, is to test.
Rain fall and water quality also comes into play. Polluted rains can decrease soil selenium levels.
Interesting! So even less attraction to a horse.
Zinc, OTOH, tastes horrible and has a horrible aftertaste. Gag! Pure zinc tabs upset my stomach and can also make me throw up.
Straight zinc totally makes me throw up. I have to be careful if I take Vit C too (which is rare). it’s got to be Ester-C for me or I’ll toss it right back up.
Any question like this has two parts:
How much of the substance in question is available in the ration being used?
How much of the substance in question is effectively metabolized by the horse?
Answering the first part of the question is relatively easy. The second, however, requires an invasive test of some sort. But that test will give a DEFINITIVE answer in all probability. The test does have a significant cost in many circumstances. And the answer might mean a long term supplement or other treatment which means additional costs. But maybe the test will show there is no problem and the long term costs can be avoided.
Seems to me that the better health and economic approach is to do the test and be guided by its results.
G.
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