My warmblood mare is coming 14, in regular work in a training program with me. She’s a big 16.3, very healthy, easy keeper, but on limited pasture. Fed orchard grass hay, beet pulp and a pelleted complete feed-- but not at the recommended amount for full nutrition due to her easy keeping. So…what would you add for a way to balance her vitamin and mineral intake? Looking for new eyes and ideas! We are in the PNW, hay is sourced from Central Oregon.
I have fed California Trace for many years – my horse is also 14, almost 17h, healthy easy keeper, in a full training program. One difference is we have no pasture for grazing…
(In addition to CA Trace, he gets Elevate Vitamin E, Cosequin ASU, Triple Crown Omega oil, and a scant scoop of Triple Crown Senior. Orchard grass hay.)
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What feed, and how much?
Switch to either a ration balancer entirely, or replace the bit of complete feed with California Trace, or Vermont Blend/Pro, along with the beet pulp
VB/P has no Vit E, so you’ll want to add 2IU per pound body weight. UltraCruz Natural E (from Santa Cruz) powder or pellets, Puritan’s Pride gel caps, or microIngredients gelcaps (the cheapest) are all inexpensive sources.
CT has some E, but it’s synthetic, to the 750IU/serving is really more like 560IU, so adjust accordingly
There’s nothing wrong with Elevate, but the Maintenance is pretty $$$ for no additional benefit, (around 4x the cost of the first 2 I listed and almost 5x the cost of the microIngredients) and the W.S. version (water-soluble) isn’t needed by most horses and is the most $$$ water-soluble version out there
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I am in the PNW and had previously fed Horse Guard. My vet wanted my yearling on a ration balancer, and I eventually just put all three of mine (19. 14, yearling) on LMF Super Supplement G and have been very happy with it.
Tee- that’s where I was leaning. It has to be easy, as she’s in a boarding situation and fairly economical. I am not a fan of the “70billiondiffernetthingsinabaggie” method of supplementing horses. My retired horses are on Equerry’s PNW vitamins in addition to their medications, served in BP. I do think Mare needs vitamin E, so I’ll look at the LMF to see where it stands on the amount in each feeding.
Cal trace and vitamin E. You will need to check your areas selenium levels to determine if you want to California trace with or without selenium. Theres a handy selenium map online.
Some horses don’t like cal trace (though all 6 of mine eat it fine) if she doesn’t, you can find a lot of similar supplements online. Cal trace just happens to be one of the cheapest.
Also, just adding, some mares do better with some magnesium if she has difficult heats. Smartpak has some in their paks, or you can buy in bulk.
Selenium - test the horse, not anything else. You may be in a county that is quite low (like I am), but the horse is fine.
For Vit E - if it just says “vitamin e”. assume synthetic, and multiply by .75 to get the amount comparable to if it was natural. If it says both d-alpha and dl-alpha, assume 50/50, so take 75% of half of it and add it to the other half
Horseguard is fairly useless with such small amounts of all those things.
Mine gets Cal Trace, 2tbsp salt, 1 vit E capsule (1200IU d-alpha tocopherol acetate from here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0845QRGV5/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_GDJNWV009ZTVP3WAWNEG?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 ) and a cup of canola oil with her 3# beet and 1# rice bran. She gets OR grass hay 3x a day. According to my spreadsheet it’s a pretty balanced ration.
Xan- you’re okay with the synthetic Vit. E? Just trying to gauge what’s best. The price and packaging of that brand is very appealing but I’ve stuck to naturally derived Vit. E so far.
This IS natural - d-alpha.
Synthetic is dl-alpha
This is the brand I listed originally, and is the cheapest I’ve ever found, around $.05/1000IU. UltraCruz and several others are still pretty cheap in the $.13/1000IU range
I am in the PNW also. I use Uckele Equi VM and Ultra Cruz Vit E (natural). Cost-wise, very reasonable. Much more so than VB or Cal Trace. Not had a problem with it being eaten either.
Equi-VM is a pretty good supplement, but it’s pretty different from CT or VB. If you want significant amino acids, or biotin, or magnesium, you’d have to add more and then compare cost/serving. It has quite a few things most horses don’t need - B vitamins, Vit C. It’s copper and zinc levels are nice, but a lot of horses don’t need the manganese it brings.
I don’t mean that to say it’s not a good v/m, it is! I’d choose it over a whole lot of other broad-spectrum v/ms out there for sure.
And if you have no other info to go on, this is as good as many, and better than a lot.
Awesome! I thought the tocopheryl indicated synthetic and am happy to be corrected.
Nope 
Tocopherol is aka Vitamin E Tocotrienol is another form
d denotes natural, dl denotes synthetic
There are 8 total forms of vitamin E, with alpha tocopherol being the most common. Alpha, beta, gamma, and delta, and tocopherol and tocotrienol, make the 8 forms, so alpha tocopherol and alpha tocotrienol, etc
I feed Vermont Blend pro & Omega E from Custom Equine Nutrition (and I test my hay). I realize I could probably separately supplement E and Flax cheaper, but I like the product and it simplifies the ‘too many scoops of this and that’ issue. Vermont Blend runs $30-45 a month depending on bag size and pro vs regular.
I chose Vermont Blend because it covers the basic v/m and the amino acids, magnesium, and pro/pre-biotics that I would be inclined to add anyway. I have been using it (regular, then pro) for nearly 3 years, very happy.
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