Calcium carbonate vs. dolomite

I am reading what seems to be an excellent book on raising goats right now.  I keep seeing people on forums/groups mention feeding calcium carbonate, but this book (Natural Goat Care by Pat Coleby) says not to feed calcium carbonate, but to feed dolomite instead (calcium magnesium carbonate) because you need calcium and magnesium to be in balance.  Any thoughts on this?  And by dolomite.... does this mean the stuff you can get at the hardware store to put in your garden, or is there food grade dolomite?

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  • I have not read this book or used dolomite personally, but I know that Hoegger sells it:

    http://hoeggerfarmyard.com/xcart/Dolomite-Mineral-Compound-5lbs.html

    However, their suggestion of using it for diarrhea really bothers me, as does the recommendation to use pepto. If a goat has diarrhea, there is a reason. You need to figure out there reason and fix it. Diarrhea is just a symptom of something that's gone wrong, such as coccidia or Johnes or some other condition that needs to be diagnosed and treated specifically.

    I also want to caution to NOT follow the advice in this book to use copper sulfate for worms. I have met several people who have killed goats following that suggestion. It was published in 2001, and we have learned SO much about goats since then! Copper sulfate is very easily absorbed, and it is easy to overdose because you don't know the goat's copper level. (There is no accurate blood test. You'd have to do a liver biopsy to know that.) I've even read a published case study on copper toxicity in a goat herd that was using a cattle mineral with 3000 ppm copper sulfate. On the other hand, in the last 5 to 10 years, there have been more than 15 studies using copper oxide wire particles, and not a single goat or sheep in any of those studies died from toxicity. There are several discussion on here about COWP and how to use it.

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