continuing with the nutrition stuff

It's going to be a scorcher today.  My guess is the weather is trying to prepare me for what Arizona is going to feel like next week.  I see napping in my future and a distinct lack of motivation to run. 

We are nearing the end of the selenium and vitamin E discussion.  Just a couple of wrap up points, some product recommendations, and some miscellaneous tidbits.

Vitamin E and Selenium Wrap up/Product Recommendations
I continue to feed and recommend the Selenium supplement sold by Platinum Performance.  I trust the company and had good results with it actually making a difference in the Selenium blood levels of my horse.  I've heard recommendations for smart pak, so if you are already a customer there, that might be a consideration.  I would also trust products from KPP (Kentucky Performance Products) or KER (Kentucky Equine Research).  My preference is feed my Selenium and vitamin E separately, so I can monitor both and adapt to the other nutrition parameters/practices in my horse's life.  For example, if I start feeding a complete feed or ration balancer  that has adds a certain amount of Selenium to my horse's diet, I may want to back off on my Selenium supplementation, however, adding a complete feed or switching to a different hay supplier doesn't necessarily mean that the vitamin E supplementation need goes away - I need to be able to supplement them separately. 

I'm currently feeding vitamin E that is sold at Walmart for humans.  It's ~$22/bottle (although on line it's listed for $15, but I've never bought it for that price, so I'll use the $22 number for this purpose).  It is possible for Farley to pick out the little capsules if I'm not watching carefully.  I'm not sure they break down well in a horse stomach --> they don't' break down noticeably in mashes.  I guess it SEEMS to work, but I have very little evidence either way since I don't measure her vitamin E levels.  KPP sells a vitamin E supplement separately.  In a cost analysis, the KPP product is $52.52 for 2 pounds.  From their webstite, 7g of powder = 1,000 I/U.  Thus to feed 3,000 I/U per day (my maintenance dose), I need to feed 21g of powder.  A 2 pound tub would last ~43 days, or approximately $1.22/day.  My walmart stuff lasts ~62 days, or ~$0.35/day.  Huge difference in cost.  There may be other options as well --> Smart pak looks like it has product that is in between the cost of Walmart and KPP.   KER has a vitamin E only supplement that has "nano" technology, (hind gut buffer so you know that it will be absorbed) but it's pricey.  Dr. Thunes recommendation was that I use the KER product for dosing the 5,000 I/U in the 2 weeks prior to race to make sure that my horse has sufficient levels. 


Sorry folks, but my time allotted to blog today has just ended so I'll have to get to the rest of my points (balancing the ration and my misc points) in the next post.  Finding the product links took me more time than I thought it would!