Copper to keep horses black?

Hi guys!
I have looked at some threats and I saw adding copper to a horses diet keeps a horse black, is this true? If so, how much? Would it work if it was given 4 days a week?
How would this work?
State Line Tack Multi-Vitamins - Horse.com
Thanks!!

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-too short-

Cu is an important trace mineral for a healthy coat but it has a relationship with other trace minerals that must be balanced. Hay typically has a good Cu value and feeding any concentrate formulated for horses is going to have added Cu. You would never add just Cu or look at just Cu to improve a situation. Most horses will benefit from a good quality vitamin and mineral supplement. You will likely see some improvement in the skin and coat (not color intensity) that comes from everything that's adding to the blend. If you can only feed it 4 days a week, that will be more beneficial than not at all.

In addition to what LHP has said, yes, coat darkening & not bleaching out in summer is indeed one of the effects copper can have. It has also been said that dark horses require more Cu in their diet than light ones(Pat Coleby). I don't know the truth of that last statement though.

Cu is a necessary nutrient & is frequently deficient in different areas, so can well be defficient in hay too, depending on where it's grown. But it is one of many nutrients that is very toxic if ODed. It's a heavy metal that accumulates & cannot be excreted. So I too would not advise feeding it straight, unless you knew absolutely what he was getting in his diet & how much to feed. While the above woman(author of 'Natural Horse Care') advises something like a 1/4 teaspoon daily, an equine nutritionist who has done soil studies in this area has advised me that it is indeed deficient around here, but that one pinch weekly should be enough to balance their diets! Bit of a difference, huh? He also told me that autopsies of horses that were oversupplemented in Cu had a luminous blue liver!

I use copper sulfate in foot soaks to treat infection, which leaves white hooves with a bluish tinge, but a couple of people have told me that their horse's feet went blue when supplementing it orally!

Wow thanks so much! :)

Thank you! So what kind of copper do I give once a week though?

Copper sulphate or 'bluestone' is readily available in feed stores & such. Again... "So I too would not advise feeding it straight, unless you knew absolutely what he was getting in his diet & how much to feed."

So it depends. You need to do a diet analysis for a start. I favour feeding pre-blended supps that are formulated for horses & include copper, rather than feeding just copper(& all the other nutrients necessary) straight.

I have been feeding my farm based on the Pat Colby diet for years and don't have bleached horses in the summer and awesome feet. If feeding bluestone (copper sulfate) is scary -and it was to me when I started- put a piece of copper pipe in your water tank or a copper penny (the older dull colored ones are real copper the new ones are zinc) in the bottom or your water bucket. My saddlebred neighbors did this for years after they replaced the copper pipes in the barn for plastic. Worked great!

Thank you very much! I will try to get a supplement :)

Thanks so much, what a great idea! :)