Mare's coat losing colour around eyes and nose

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welshcobprincess

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I have a 16 year old welsh section D mare, and I have recently noticed that she appears to have lost all the pigment around her eyes and nose. This has never happened before. She is a bay mare, but she now has white circles around her eyes. Her nose and under her tail also have white patches. She hasn't lost any of her coat it has just changed colour.

I have heard from people that this could be due to a copper deficiency and I wondered if anyone else had experienced anything similar?

What products do people recommend for restoring her natural coat colour and if there is a deficiency what supplements are good to help solve this?

Thanks!
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Could it be vitiligo? Copper deficiency causes black bits to go red, so if her mane is going auburn, that could be it. Vitiligo patches stay white.
 
Ooh that's interesting, I've never heard of that in horses before but a quick google image search shows that the symptoms are almost identical to my mare! I'm going to have the vet out to double check I think, but do you know if there is anyway of treating it or if it's just one of those things?

FYI I'm not interested in showing her, and to me she will always be beautiful no matter what she looks like, but it would be nice to restore some of her original coat colour :)
 
I think the change is permanent and you could end up with more random white bits. I have an appy x and she has suddenly started to go white in a very extreme fashion. She looks totally different to this time last year and although some of it is an improvement, I liked her being brown best!

Need a bottle of 'Just for Mares'. :D
 
Someone I know had this happen to her horse, vet said copper deficiency. Horse is on a supplement now - think vet recommended Horse First Cuppra.
 
Henry has this. He's grey anyway, so it's not as noticeable, you can really see it around his eyes where the skin has changed colour from black to pink. It actually waxes and wanes a bit in the size of the patch, but it's never gone completely. Vet has seen it and says she suspects it's vitiligo, but there's no way to test for it! We have put him on a copper supplement, as our area of the country is generally pretty deficient in copper, he still has the pink patch, but I think it's smaller than it was last summer (without the supplement). I use a progressive earth supplement, I looked at the Cuppra one but it was more expensive, and the pro earth one had very good reviews too.
 
Yes it is suspected that vitiligo can sometimes indicate a copper deficiency, I think zinc has been implicated too. May be worth getting horse/forage tested to check.

It's easy enough to supplement just copper or zinc, or just a decent supplement if required. I don't think you can reverse it just limit progression.
 
This is her earlier in the year! The white patches have got much bigger around her eyes, and her eyes and muzzle used to be really black! They're not the clearest but you can sort of see where the colour has gone. Still love her though!!! <3 <3


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