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You are here: Home / Horse deseases – First Aid – Healthiness / Horses with Copper Deficiency

Horses with Copper Deficiency

02/02/2011 by Marie

Even if riders and horse owners always try to feed the best to their horses easily a horse has a deficiency of copper.

Roughages and cereals often have a lack of this important nutrient if they grow on sandy, marshy or boggy soil.

How can riders notice a copper deficiency?

All soils around the area of the Rhine do not provide a lot of copper so that experts advise all horse owners

Horses with a copper deficiency are sluggish and tired.

not to feed cereals which come from this part of Germany. The main problem of a copper deficiency is that horse owners as well as vets can hardly notice it. In the best case a horse gets a pigmentary abnormality around his eyes or even around his nostril. Some horses have some deficiency symptoms on their coat so that especially brown and black horses get lightened parts. Sometimes one can find rose colored parts on sensitive areas of the body like the nostril or between the hind legs and the tail.

Generally a horse does not show any outward symptoms for a copper deficiency but just behaves in a sluggish and tired way. This behavior has to be noticed by the rider or horse owner because it can give a hint to a lack of copper. A copper deficiency influences the liver, bones, musculature and skin and due to this it can easily become dangerous. In the worst case it can result in an osteoporosis or arthritis – in some cases vets even diagnosed fragile bones or deformations.

Function of copper in the organism

Copper has an important function in the organism of a horse because it stabilizes the health of the intestine. After a period of disease, like for example after an infestation by worms, vets often diagnose a lack of copper. Moreover copper is able to lower the concentration of histamine in the body and this especially is important for horses with allergies. Blood screenings show that horses with allergies often have a lack of copper.

How much copper does a horse need?

In general a healthy horse has a blood serum of about 16 µmol/l. This data already presents the minimum of copper in the blood. Due to this riders and horse owners need to take care of the daily ration: a horse with a weight of about 600 kg needs 60 to 90 mg of copper per day. Normally this is already realized by just feeding enough of hay and straw. Vets do not advise to feed additional chemical preparations: inorganic compounds of cupper often are not accepted by the organism so that they do not help.

Overdose of copper

Undoubtedly there are horse owners who want the best for their horse – and feed too much of copper. This has the same effect as a lack of copper what means that it does not improve the health of the horse. Due to this a disease of the kidney, a high blood pressure or other mental dysfunctions can be the results of such an overdose. Nevertheless a vet needs to make a blood screening so that he can make sure that these symptoms really refer to a copper deficiency and not to a lack of zinc or manganese.

Surftips:

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  • The most important minerals for horses
  • Horses with Laminitis – Origin and Therapy

Filed Under: Horse deseases – First Aid – Healthiness

Trackbacks

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  2. Respiratory disease | Horseback Riding worldwide says:
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  3. Horses with Laminitis- Origin and therapy | Horseback Riding worldwide says:
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  4. Horses with a Lack of Zinc | Horseback Riding worldwide says:
    03/28/2011 at 01:30

    […] Copper deficiency, lack of selenium, liver […]

  5. Horses with a Lack of Selenium › Horseback Riding worldwide says:
    09/24/2012 at 06:00

    […] elements caused a too high data of selenium in the blood screening. Due to this it may help to feed copper, zinc and manganese to lower the data of […]

  6. The most important minerals for horses › Horseback Riding worldwide says:
    07/17/2013 at 07:58

    […] elements. Until today we still do not know all the functions of the trace elements iron, Iodine, copper, fluorine, zinc, manganese, cobalt, molybdenum, chromium, selenium, vanadium and […]

  7. Sun bleaching in black tails...is it genetic? - Page 3 says:
    07/23/2013 at 06:17

    […] I'd looked at those products after I found the link with copper deficiency but was concerned that I was already feeding those vitamins and minerals in with the complete feed I use – she gets a mix of Sentinel Senior, Triple Crown safe starch forage and TC low starch pellets so I was worried about overloading her with something that might cause problems (plus spending money on a whole load of ingredients I didn't need). If it was my land that was copper deficient then I'd expect to see the same bleaching in the other horses but some humans can have deficiencies even on well balanced diets so maybe horses are the same Too much iron in the diet can cause copper and zinc imbalance – also related to ground you are on That would also cause poor hooves which she doesn't have I will maybe get a soil analysis done I started looking for a straight copper supplement but not getting any results that I felt comfortable with in terms of ordering on line Horses with Copper Deficiency […]

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