The Best Natural Sources of Vitamin and Minerals for Your Horses

Modern horse owners and trainers provide their horses with vitamins and minerals as part of their daily diet. They are a very important necessity. Vitamins, while essential, are needed in lesser quantities than other nutrients, however.

Each type of vitamin has a specific job in the horse's body. So you'll want to be sure it gets the required amounts every day. Proper nutrition means providing your horse with the correct balance of vitamins and minerals depending on its age, weight, and use. You are never supposed to make a guess at what the right amounts are.

In most instances, a horse can received the vitamins it needs in its food. Others are usually produced internally. However, if a horse's diet isn't as healthy as it should be it will be missing many of these vitamins and minerals. If this is the case, you may have to begin providing vitamin supplements to your horse. Here some of the more popular equine supplements and sources of Vitamins and Minerals:

You can find Vitamin A in carrots as well as leafy green vegetables.

Vitamin B is an important vitamin found in grains but you can still provide equine supplements containing Vitamin B even if your horse is getting it through the grain in its diet. Vitamin B12 can be a little difficult to find in supplement form. It can be found in herbal form, so ask your veterinarian about which herbs to use.

Bioflavinoids are often supplied with Buckwheat to help promote strong blood vessels.

Many home owners use fresh greens to provide Vitamin C to their horses. If your horse can't get to a pasture with plenty of green vegetation, some horse owners will use various flavors of tea bags as a way to supplement all the Vitamin C and Iron missing from its diet.

Your horse will need some choline in its daily diet so make sure it gets to eat bitter vegetables and Dandelion leaves. You can again use supplements or simply let some dandelions grow around the yard. Your horse can just eat them when it feels like.

Vitamin E is often found in fresh wheat germ, a commercial source of both E's and B's. A little fresh wheat germ for those horses not on grains is all that is required. Anything more expensive or more processed is nonsense.