Selenium? how much per day?

I've been looking into my boys nutritional intake lately, and discovered that our area is extremely difficient in selenium in the hay. He is on a complete feed, which says 0.5ppm of selenium on the guaranteed analysis. I'm not really sure what that means, but am wondering if that is enough selenium in his diet or if I should add a selenium supplement? I know too much selenium can be toxic, so want to make sure he needs it before I start feeding it to him. I am also trying to see if that vet can do any tests to see if he's deficient in something as he's having hoof problems.

I am from Florida and we are apparently selenium deficient also. I will help you out a little on your quest for answers. And it is a quest.

There are two types of Selenium.

Selenium Carbonate, which is a man made, harder to digest, and is the type that is in most horse feeds and supplements.

Selenium yeast, which is highly digestible and expensive, only in certain feeds. You can ask the company which one they use. I would use this one as a supplement if anything.

Definitely get a blood test before you start giving them selenium, then the vet should be able to prescribe how much to give. There is no way to know how much he is getting naturally without getting him tested first, and the overdose is fatal. Think, hoof sloughing off.

You can always try a good hoof supplement. I use HB15 and I can tell a noticeable difference in hooves and coat after a month or so of use.

^ agreed there.

Is your horse sluggish at all? Selena was super sluggish when we bought her and long behold, selenium deficiency.. Not the only thing to worry about but that could be an idea if you are having that problem.

That's good that they can do a blood test for selenium. Are there any more vitamins\minerals that horses are often deficient in that I should get tested as well? We live in Atlantic Canada.
I'm actually hoping he is deficient in something, and that I find out what it is as that may be why he is having lots of hoof problems. It'd be nice if it was something permanently fixable so I don't have to treat his hooves every day forever.
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I am sure they can test for a lot more with a blood panel.

Hoof supplement really does work and there aren't any risks if you want to start feeding that while doing research and getting a vet appointment.
I think it would take a while to see if it was working, because the "old" hoof needs to grow out. It won't fix the hoof that is already there, but improve the hoof that has yet to grow. I always see a change in coat before a change in hoof because hair replaces itself a lot faster.

So, I learned something interesting today. The vet called me back, and apparently we are deficient in a bunch of minerals and vitamins. Any horse on pasture should have a vitamin mineral supplement and a selenium suplement. Any horse on a complete feed, should have a mineral vitamin supplement with 0.05 to 0.1 selenium in it.
I always figured that since he was on a complete feed, that he didn't need anything else. I definitely learned something today. She also gave me a list of some supplements that have the correct minerals and vitamins in them.
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Well that was easy!

Yeah, selenium is one of many minerals that are commonly deficient/imbalanced in the diet, so need supplementing. As you're aware, selenium is also very toxic if ODed, as are many other minerals. Therefore knowing what's in your horse's diet already is an important start. Hay/pasture analysis is the only way to be accurate about this, so I'd do that if poss, but it's not feasible for many, esp if you get hay from different sources. Feedxl.com is a fantastic program for working out diet & nutrition, with nutritionists on call & ability for hay analysis to be included.

Yes, hooves do reflect nutrition, so if that's not good, then likely hoof health isn't great either.

Just wanted to throw out there that the more concentrated the feed (i.e. The smaller the ration recommended on the bag) the higher the level of selenium needs to be to meet nutritional value. For example, I feed 1-1/4 lb of a ration balancer daily and it has 3.40 ppm. Looks high, but because I feed so little of it, my horse is not getting overdosed. Safe Choice is an example of a grain that's fed at a higher feeding rate, and it contains 0.6 ppm selenium. I'd probably be feeding 5 lbs of that a day if I were following the feeding directions on the bag, so the amount of selenium would be comparable to the amount from 1 lb of the ration balancer.

(BTW, I think you got your decimal points in the wrong spot )

I though that's what she said, but I will have to call again and check. She said the tests for deficiencies are very expensive, and they usually do not do them around here, but look at what's in the diet, and as most of the hay in the province is roughly the same nutritional wise (information from the agricultural college) they base the supplements needed on that. We went over what's in his feed, and how much he gets per day as well as what his problem was. Good thing though is that she said she's been seeing tons of white line issues this year, and soaking has almost always cleared it right up.
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