How old was your horse when they started going grey from old age

[Hattiehorse1]

As title says, at what age did you notice your horse going a bit grey due to old age?

My chestnut cob is about 12/13 and has started to show some grey hairs above his eyes (his eyebrow area?)

I didn't expect this to happen so young?

Thanks

 

[Honey08]

My chestnut has had grey hairs in his tail from about six, loads of them. He's now 13 and has quite a lot on his body. I think he will end up sorrel. My 18 year old bright bay has one sole grey hair in her mane.

 

[Kezzabell2]

my bay has grey in his mane since he was about 4

 

[southerncomfort]

My old mare lived to 27 and never had grey hairs except in her tail.

ETA: she was a chestnut. However, I also have a 23 yr old chestnut mare and she has a few grey hairs above her eyes now but that's it.

 

[Ruftysdad]

My bay gelding is 23 and has no grey hairs yet. I suppose it is all in tne genes

 

[WandaMare]

I have a 14 yo who has recently got some greys on her forehead, under her forelock. I had a 30 yo chestnut who only had the very odd grey in her mane.

 

[TelH]

I also had a mare who lived to 27. She was dark bay, you could count on one hand the white hairs in her mane but she did not change colour anywhere else.

I have a 24yo little black mare. When her foal was born 6 years ago her face was all black apart from a large star. Now she has loads of grey, her star seems to have increased and she has white all down the sides of her face too.

2 of my other ponies are 19/20. The 19yo is bay and is exactly the same colour now as when I got her aged 5. The 20 yo is flaxen chestnut and now has a lot of white hairs, he has the face of a little old man.

 

[madmav]

Guess it's like people and is the luck of the draw. I had very dark hair and started getting grey hairs in my twenties. Now in my fifties and would be pretty much grey all over if not for hair dye! A friend who is the same age and similar hair colour has only a couple of grey hairs. Very envious, but what can you do!

 

[JJS]

Duplicate post. Whoops!

 

[JJS]

I think that, as is the case with people too, it all depends on the individual. When I got my first mare she had just turned fifteen, and she already had a lot of grey under her forelock and along her cheekbones. However, the loan horse I got alongside her when she was eighteen was only a year younger, the same colour, and had similar breeding, and he didn't have a grey hair on him.

 

[atropa]

My dark bay was 14 when I got her and has some grey hairs in her mane/tail, haven't really noticed any on her body yet

 

[MochaDun]

I have a coloured pony and in the last year or two (he's 20) I've noticed grey hairs on his forehead and head amongst the brown. Do horses just tend to get more grey hairs on their heads rather than elsewhere on their body?

 

[rosiesowner]

I know that dapple greys are a completely different kettle of fish, but here's Chilli. She's 16 and used to be almost black with dapples

What makes me laugh is the section of black at the top of her mane that refuses to go grey!! She also has the tiniest amount of dapples left around her HQs and her knees and hocks are still dark

She used to have a facial marking, but now all you can see is where it was pink and depending on the light a very vague outline higher up...

 

[huskydamage]

20, before that 100% chestnut. White bits appearing every year, I have to confess I trimmed the hair off one tiny one and got rid of it because it was on her face and I didn't like it! I suspect in a few years time I will have a strawberry roan with random white spots

 

[mollichop]

This is my 28 year old mare - she has next to no grey hairs - one or two in her mane but none on her face yet. The same can't be said for me!

(Sorry photo is tiny - click on it to view it)

 

[Magnetic Sparrow]

My chestnut gelding started to develop frosting above his eyes when he was about 10, his dam had the same markings, but only when she was several years older. She was bay. Neither showed any other greying.