# Does black as night really work?



## Azale1 (Jul 5, 2010)

Does Black as Night really work? What is everyone's thoughts? I have a very dark bay horse or supposed to be anyway but she is so badly bleached out. I live in Southern California and she is kept in a 24x24 pen so is in the sun all 24/7 and no way to get out of it unless she decides to stand under her cover. And if I did start her on this when should I do it? Now? or closer to Feb when she would begin to lose her coat?


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## Solon (May 11, 2008)

Paprika works just as good and you need to start it prior to their spring shed.

If you do a search for paprika or black as knight you'll find a bunch of posts on this already.


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## Azale1 (Jul 5, 2010)

I have heard that feeding paprika straight is damaging to horses is this true or not?


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## mls (Nov 28, 2006)

http://www.horseforum.com/horse-grooming/feeding-black-horses-paprika-60152/


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## CloudsMystique (Mar 3, 2009)

Yes, BaK really works. Like Solon said, you have to start feeding it either a few weeks before the summer coat comes in or a few weeks before the winter coat comes in.

I have tried both straight paprika and Nu-Image Dark Horse and haven't found them to be as effective.

I started my mare on Nu-Image around May this year. Her summer coat was already grown in, but it didn't matter because she was already black from the BaK. So if the Nu-Image worked, she should have stayed black and if it didn't work, she should have faded. Well... she immediately faded. I put her back on BaK (this was now about 4 weeks after I started Nu-Image), and so far every scrape she's gotten the hair has grown back jet black. I'll take a picture tomorrow and post it here.

As far as paprika... I found that to be totally ineffective. BaK contains paprika among a lot of other things, including soybean and flaxseed - both of which contain much more copper than paprika does.


Here's what my mare looked early this summer on BaK:










And here she is after just a few weeks of Nu-Image:











I'll come back with the picture of the black regrowth : )


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## Solon (May 11, 2008)

It probably depends on the individual horse. We had a boarder that tried BAK and it didn't work and was way more expensive than basic paprika which worked just fine. Horse stayed black with daily pasture turnout that had no shade.


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## mumiinek (Aug 4, 2010)

I need this thing so bad. My friesian is a bloody chestnut =/ I just checked the prices, I knew it was pricey but OMG... plus I didn't find a single eshop selling it in Europe and having it shipped from US would double (if not tripple) the price. I mean, last week I wanted to order an english saddlebag for $19 and when I asked what the shipping would be they said 47$! I can't really afford paying that much just to have the item delivered... Is it easy to get this thing in US? Do you have any tips where to get it? I found the _official _BaK website ships it from Netherlands but their prices were three times as much as those I found in the US shops, but then again when I add the shipping it's the same in the end... Can you give me some advice?


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## Solon (May 11, 2008)

Try paprika before you spend all the money on BAK. It can't hurt and does work for a lot of horses.


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## mumiinek (Aug 4, 2010)

That is the funny thing, I have absolutely no clue what paprika is. In my language (and most slavic ones I believe) paprika means 'a pepper' (the vegetable) but I don't really dare to guess if it has something in common with the actual paprika. Once after reading a thread about paprika on this forum I had a dream about feeding horses peppers :lol: I've tried to google paprika a good couple of times but I haven't found a site where it would say WHAT it is, it always only gives an advice about how to use it on horses. Can you please specify what exactly I should look for as paprika? So far I've only learned that it is a powder.

Also, when do I start using paprika? Many people here say I should do it in spring when the coat changes but what about now? The horse is gonna start to change his coat soon (I believe in a month or two) so let's say I get the paprika this week or the next one, can I start using it right away? Will it keep the coat black? My friesian has had a couple of scratches and the hairs grew back totally black so I'm not worried that much about the colour of the new coat but whether it will bleach that badly again.

Thank you


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## mumiinek (Aug 4, 2010)

Oh!

Paprika - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Is THIS it?


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## justkeepriding (Jun 26, 2010)

In the US we refer to Hungarian paprika as simply paprika. I have not personally seen results but worth a try. I have great results with a natural product which contains grape seed extract and coconut oil. Good luck.


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## Deerly (Apr 18, 2010)

The people I know who used it it absolutely works and is wonderful! I don't think the paprika is the only ingredient that does anything because they have a "show" formula w/out paprika that works as well.

I use the Gold as Sun version and I saw insanely dramatic results! I actually think I need to feed less because my horse got SO dark! :lol:


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## mumiinek (Aug 4, 2010)

My boyfriend is also trying to make me buy Black as Knight rather than experiment with paprika... I don't even know what kind to get, I mean, are you really talking about the pepper you use everyday for cooking? The red sweet powder spice? THAT thing is supposed to make my horse black? :shock: I looked in the store today, it was full of sweet and spicy hungarian paprika but I haven't found any spanish one (they say it's better). And I still can't believe that pepper would actually help my horse grow a shiny black coat, it's like believing feeding my horse cinnamon would grow him a unicorn horn :lol: I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't work, I've never tried it, it just sounds funny to me... and kinda shocking too. I'd very much appreciate if somebody could explain to me what a paprika is and where to get it. Otherwise I'm just really gonna end up selling all my movables and buying Black as Knight :-|


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## CloudsMystique (Mar 3, 2009)

Here are the pictures of the scratches I was talking about. They'd been there for a few weeks when I took the pictures and hadn't faded at all.

http://i53.tinypic.com/dq4u9y.jpg
http://i53.tinypic.com/33y3tc0.jpg



Weirdly, my mare's coat decided to completely fall out and regrow black.

You can see it trying to turn black in random patches here:
http://i51.tinypic.com/xcw2kh.jpg

And here she is about a week later (granted a little sweaty, but still MUCH darker):
http://i55.tinypic.com/2ednl6u.jpg


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