Vitamin And Mineral Horse Ratio – Part 1, Vitamins

There are a lot of different elements that go into making sure your horse has the proper vitamins and minerals. But what’s more important than that is making sure your horse has the proper ratio of both.  

Currently, most recommendations for vitamin and mineral ratios come from new research and estimates done by the National Research Council of the National Academies. This blog post will go over the different vitamins your horse needs for proper horse health.

At Vetline Equine, Dr. Larson, our founding equine veterinarian, carefully designed EqVital™. These vitamin-mineral horse supplements help your companion or competitive horse with their horse health. If you’re looking for horse supplements to help your horse’s imbalances and physiology, start supplementing their diet with EqVital™.

Vitamins

Vitamins are organic compounds that help your horse’s growth and metabolism. Vitamins can do anything from helping in the absorption of calcium to protecting the body’s cell membranes and promoting overall horse health and well being.  

Vitamins are divided into two groups: fat-soluble (dissolved in fat) and water-soluble (dissolved in water). A common example of fat-soluble vitamins are A, D, E, and K, while water-soluble can be C and the B vitamin group.  

VITAMIN A

Vitamin A is good for proper protein function, helping cells grow, keeping muscles functioning, and making mucous membranes healthy.

VITAMIN D

Vitamin D is the vitamin that assists your horse’s body with absorbing calcium and regulating the amount of phosphorus excreted. Both of these functions help with bone and joint maintenance.

VITAMIN E

When vitamin E is in the body, it scavenges for free radicals and works to protect the cells of the body. Additionally, vitamin E supports the nerve and muscle function and the immune system.

Vitamin-Mineral Interaction: Vitamin E works with the mineral selenium to help ensure that muscles are functioning properly.

VITAMIN K

Vitamin K does a lot for your horse’s body, including the blood-clotting mechanisms. Toxicity or a severe intestinal disease could affect the production of vitamin K, meaning that your horse might need vitamin K supplements externally.

VITAMIN C

Vitamin C is a vitamin that should sound very familiar. It plays a role in protecting the cells in the body and forming collagen — a vital connective tissue in the body. This is what makes vitamin C an important supplement for humans to take to help fight a cold.

B VITAMINS

Vitamins from the B vitamin group can help your horse with the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. These different B vitamins give your horse the energy they need. This is especially important if you have competitive race horses.

While horses produce their own B Vitamins, adding extra fiber to their diet promotes the production of Vitamin B. But race horses usually have a diet that restricts their amount of fiber and decreases their production of B Vitamins. Since Vitamin B converts to energy, it’s important for competitive horses to get additional Vitamin B supplements so they stay energized before and during the race.

This is important for all horses, but especially for equine that are highly active. You want to make sure they’re getting enough vitamins to keep their energy up before, during, and after their race!  

Vetline Equine

At Vetline Equine, we’ve carefully created our EqVital™ horse supplement to help you with your horse’s health. In fact, EqVital™ contains vitamin A, B1, B2, B6, D3, and E. This formula, created and tested by an equine veterinarian for optimal horse health, will provide a well-balanced vitamin-mineral horse supplement.

Take the guesswork out when it comes to finding the right vitamin and mineral ratio for proper horse health. Instead, trust Vetline and trust EqVital™.