Odd color change

[littlebigspots]

This is our old guy he has always been a nice yellow palomino much like my little guy



Little guy^

But this last fall/winter we were having trouble keeping weight on him so our vet suggested adding bread to his diet. Well he has been on a bread and hay diet all winter and is gaining and maintaining his weight but now we have an orange horse with some sooty black marks on his haunches. Most the bread he gets is whole grain and rye. I just thought I would share since this group seems to like strange color so much.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

He is lovely. I love how dark he's gotten, wonder what is in the bread causing him to darken up so much.

 

[littlebigspots]

I've been letting my hard keeper cremello have bread too and she looks like a palomino.

 

[chandab]

How much bread do you let them have?

My only hard keeper has Cushing's and I don't think the carbs in bread would be good for her, but since she is in pretty rough shape I might have a go at letting her have a little bread. [i know she likes it, as I've given her a slice here and there (before her diagnosis); but never consider it as more than a treat.]

 

[littlebigspots]

He does not have Cushing's that's what we thought at first and had his teeth checked. I did a lot of reading up on opinions both ways before we gave it to him and very slowly built him up to 4 loaves twice a day. I'm pretty happy with how he is looking. I know some people would never feed it, but not much else was helping him and I would have had to put him down so he wouldn't freeze over the winter.

 

[chandab]

When I was in Colorado, one of the horse rescues down there got day old bread from a local bakery (might have even been a tad older, as they either got it free or extremely cheap), and they fed that to their rescue horses (in addition to their regular hay ration). They doled out small amounts daily and spread it around to be sure every one had a fair shot at getting some. One time when I was visiting they had some orange and blue braided loaves that were left-overs from some Denver Broncos party of some sort, man did they look gross.

Thank you for the information. May look into adding a little bread to my mare's diet, and see what it does for her. I know its not quite the same, but I've read about feeding brewer's yeast to help horses condition, wonder if the yeast in bread works similarly.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

I was wondering the same Chanda, but I have fed brewer's yeast and never seen a colour change as a result. Maybe the bread making yeast is different but I'm thinking the colour change is caused by something other than the yeast. Maybe the fats? Don't really know, just trying to think what is in bread. When I fed black oil sunflower seeds my horses were shinier and darker so that is why I am wondering about the fat.

 

[Shes My Style]

I wonder if there is a decent amount of copper in the bread? I know copper in the diet can darken the coat.