30/01/2026
Brilliant advice regarding vitamin E and fantastic to see our SPILLERS Supple and Senior Balancer in the spotlight! 🧡
Friday focus…ensuring your horse has enough vitamin E in their diet!
This is particularly the case if your horse has no or very little turnout as hay and haylage are low in vitamin E, so the shortfall that would usually be made up from eating grass, will be missing.
Whether you feed a vitamin and mineral supplement, a feed balancer or a balanced compound feed (a balanced mix or cube), not all are equal!!
NRC guidelines recommend that a 500kg horse at maintenance needs a minimum of 500IU of vitamin E per day, but 1000IU is recommended.. There is vitamin E in fresh grass, a tiny amount in hay and haylage, so if your horse or pony is on a hay/haylage only diet, is on soaked hay and restricted short grass, their daily vitamin E requirement will not be met and it needs to be provided in the feed.
I have used this example previously, so I will again today for ease. If I take 3 mainstream makes of low calorie / lite balancers (I prefer to call them balancers that balance a calorie restricted diet as this is what they should do!), the vitamin E levels in them all vary and this is what a 500kg horse will receive;
• Balancer 1 provides 800IU/kg - the horse receives 400IU
• Balancer 2 provides 1000IU/kg - the horse recieves 500IU
• Balancer 3 provides 2000IU/kg - the horse gets 1000IU
So all quite different which is why I usually recommend a specific balancer after assessment of a horse and his or her management etc, so I know that that each horse receives what they need to according to their individual requirements and environments.
So if someone says to you “ I would use this one as it is cheaper, easier to get, on offer, balancer 1 is the same as balancer 3 ” or whatever reason they give, I would definitely not recommend taking their advice! They are not all the same! All nutrients are important, not just vitamin E, but during the winter months when many do not have access to grass, it is worth checking that your chosen feed provides enough and that it balances a hay / haylage only diet.