EHorse Equipment .com article

Vitamin E Supplement Helpful To Late Pregnant Mares

Author: EHorse Equipment Staff - 12/11/2001




Dr. Frederick Harper
Extension Horse Specialist
Animal Science Department
University of Tennessee

Do you take vitamins? As a society, we are very conscientious about
vitamins. The same is true about many horse owners who provide supplemental
vitamins to their horses.

Often with a balanced ration, such vitamin supplementation may not be
necessary, especially in pleasure horses.

But recent research has shown that supplemental vitamin E may be beneficial
when fed to mares in late pregnancy.

Why would this research be important to broodmare owners?

Foals are born without any natural immunity to diseases, and it is several
weeks before their immune system is functional. To survive, foals must
acquire passive immunity from their dam`s colostrum or first milk. For about
a month before foaling, mares concentrate immunoglobulins in their
colostrum.

Immunoglobulin is IgG, but IgA and IgM are also important. Colostrum also
provides the foal with other special nutritional needs.

Immunoglobulins are rather large molecules that normally are too big to be
absorbed by the foal`s intestinal tract. But nature makes it possible for
the foal`s intestinal tract to absorb immunoglobulins for a few hours after
birth.

Foals may become sick and die without adequate immunoglobulins. Several
factors are critical in this process: 1) adequate immunoglobulin levels in
the colostrum; 2) early and frequent nursing to obtain immunoglobulins and
3) the intestinal tract`s ability to absorb these large immunoglobulins.
Failure of passive transfer occurs if this process does not work properly.

Researchers at the University of Connecticut divided 12 pregnant mares into
two groups based on breed, age and expected foaling date.

The mixed grass hay/grain diet fed met the National Research Council`s
vitamin and mineral recommendations. Half the mares were supplemented to get
the required level of 36 International Units (IU) of vitamin E per pound of
feed daily while the other mares got 73 International Units (IU) of Vitamin
E or twice as much daily.

The good news from this research is the scrum and colostrum IgG levels were
greater in those mares that received the higher level of added vitamin E.

All foal`s scrum IgG and IgM levels were similar at birth. After nursing,
foals from the higher vitamin E supplemented mares had larger scrum and IgA
values reflective of their dams`s colostrum.

From these data, it appears that the supplementing mares with higher levels
of vitamin E the last months of pregnancy improves both their scrum and
colostrat immunoglobulin levels as well as their nursing foals` blood level;
thus, reducing possible failure of passive transfer.

Broodmare owners can enhance this process by supplementing mares so they get
about twice the vitamin E required in the last months of pregnancy which
would be about 73 IU per pound of feed. Green pasture forages, wheat germ
oil, corn and soybean oils are good vitamin E sources. Hays however lose
vitamin E content in harvesting, curing and storage. If one feeds a
commercial vitamin supplement, use one with a high vitamin E content.

Mares foaling before spring pasture is available should be supplemented with
vitamin E. It seems advisable to continue supplementation for at least a
month after foaling or until the mares are on good-quality spring pasture.

Mares known to have pool quality colostrum or foals that have had failure of
passive transfer also should be supplemented with vitamin E at twice the
required level

www.motionparkmorgans.com
www.ilovemorgans.com http://ilovemorgans.blogspot.com/
http://www.geocities.com/pastevenagain/moonluckpugs.html
http://moonluck.photosite.com/

Yahoo! Groups Sponsor

Get unlimited calls to

U.S./Canada




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links

To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilovemorgans/

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ilovemorgans-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

>