# Darken her coat??



## Soul (Nov 23, 2010)

I have a very sweet, beautiful palomino mare. She has a lighter coat that I would with to get a little darker and richer looking. I heard paprika and copper help with that but I don't know for sure and I don't want to just start adding that to her food without knowing more and getting imput first. Any suggustions or people with experience with darkening a horses coat or has done something like this before? Any advice is welcome!
This is what she looks like...








I want her coat to look more like this...








I probably won't be able to get her _that_ dark, but I little richer and darker would be lovely 
Thank you in advance!


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## sixlets (May 1, 2009)

Well, on the more expensive side Gold As Sun supplement really does work to bring out the golden hues in a horse. I have also heard the paprika trick, but for black horses... One way that you can make any horse's coat look richer and healthier you can feed canola oil, flax seed oil, flax seeds, or Black Oil Sunflowers (make sure they are black oil, others will make the horse sick). Just keep in mind that if your horse doesn't naturally have the potential for a more honey-colored coat, no amount of miracle supplements will change that.


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## NdAppy (Apr 8, 2009)

There are supplements that you can give. Just a warning though, if you show and your mare is drug tested, she will test positive with a majority of the supplements. 

On another note, I really don't think supplements would darken your mare up all that much. You can't change her genetics. There is no way she would get that dark golden palomino color. Sorry.

Better feeding and minerals can change a tone in the horse's color, but not that much.


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## Chiilaa (Aug 12, 2010)

Rug her during the day. While it won't make her any darker as such, it will stop any sun bleaching from making her even lighter


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## Soul (Nov 23, 2010)

Hmm this is something bigger than I thought. Blanketing isn't probably something I would do and I wouldn't keep her inside. So if I gave her color enhancing supplements, it would show up in drug tests??


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