Anyone ever use "Gold as the Sun" or "Black as Knight" color enhancing supplement.  It sounds like it is more effective warding off "sunburn" or fading from the sun.  I have a palomino mare who is inside during the day and turned out at night. Once a beautiful gold, old age and other health problems (cushings - I have to clip her every month or so) have turned her to a mousy gray except her head and on either side of her tail which are her original gold - she looks like a palomino-roan! 

Does this stuff work?  Does it seem to stimulate hair growth? - with the cushings, her coat doesn't need to grow any faster or heavier.  Thanks for any feedback

I tried the "Black As Knight" and from my experience it was a waste of money. It did nothing as far as I could tell. It may work on some horses, but it did not work on mine.

huntseat, you said: "You can't feed a loser into a champion"

You should completely read a post before imparting your pearls of wisdom.

grayland's horse is far from a loser.  It's an elder horse with health issues, including cushings, and grayland obviously cares enough about the horse to try and give it the best care possible instead of sending it to the glue factory.

grayland, I don't know where you live and I don't know your feelings regarding alternative approaches to horse health care.  I am a HUGE proponent of alternative methods in conjunction with traditional methods. 

That being said, have you considered acupuncture for your horse?  My alternative practioner is a DVM.  She performs chiropractics, massage, and acupuncture.  She recently acupunctured my 12 year old horse for a low grade kidney infection.  He's like a new horse, mentally and physically (the hives he was getting from summer allergies completely disappeared.)

Also, BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds, yep, bird seed) is excellent for weight gain and keeping a shine on the coat.  However, based on your comment regarding the mare's health, I wouldn't put that in her feed until I spoke with a vet or an alternative health person.

Hope this helps you

Judy

I don't think that huntseat meant it like that. Huntseat, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought she just meant a little feed isn't going to perform miracles.

"can't change a horse with feed, beyond a few degrees of normal for that animal"

1. I agree with that comment and that's probably how things should have been said in the first place, instead of inferring the horse is a loser.

It doesn't matter in what  manner the word "loser" was intended, and it doesn't matter whether I'm a new person on this message board, the word "loser" infers just that --- a loser.

2.  I most certainly did take my own advice.  The past tense of all the verbs relating to BAK indicate that, but to clarify:

Once I saw there was nothing magical about BAK and my horses were still going to bleach in the summer sun, I quit using it.

Judy

Take it easy guys.  I know what you meant - no offense taken  Believe me, if I could pour the supplements and super-feed to her I would, but due to her cushings, or cushing-like symptoms, I have to keep her on a very small amount of low starch feed and some average hay to try to get her weight down and keep the founder potential under control.  She is also on Lamina-saver, which is a new wonder-supplement for laminitis, ring bone, etc., that has been helping her lameness, but the manufacturer doesn't divulge ingredients - this makes it even harder to try to figure out what is safe to give her.

Actually, this mare has all the classic cushings symtoms - long, non-shedding coat, cresty neck, fat rolls (though she was always an easy-keeper), then she came up lame this spring, so we assumed founder.  My farrier put on shoes and pads, and had the vet run blood tests, but initial tests did not indicate cushings.  On her last shoe reset, my farrier said her feet did not show any indication that she had foundered.  I had her x-rayed and she shows no rotation of her coffin bones - the good news.  The bad news is that she does show development of ring-bone, which doesn't have a very good prognosis, either.

Regarding alternative treatments, I too, am a great believer in the holistic approach to some health problems.  I, myself, had 2 herniated discs in my back, and I owe much of my recovery to a great accupuncture doctor.  We are fortunate in the area to have a great accupuncture/chiropractic vet - I contacted him when we first thought her problem was cushings/founder, but he didn't have much in his bag of tricks (or box of needles!) to treat either problem.  I haven't contacted him since I found out about the ring bone, but plan to, though I doubt he can do much beyond offering some pain control.

The mare's a real sweetheart, and I had hoped to team her up with my daughter for a couple of years for Walk-trot.  I'm trying to do the best for her that I can, and she does seem to be improving.  My vet is very pleased with her progress and thinks it would be OK for my daughter to start riding her a little bit. 

Thanks for your feedback on the Gold As Sun.  I had my doubts about it from the first time I saw its claims, but hey,  who out there thougt 20 years ago we'ld be getting chiropractic adjustments and accupuncture done on our horse?!

Happy trails!