I was reading an article about giving Copasure capsules, and the writer recommends removing food for 6 hours before bolus, and continuing to withhold food for at least 3 hours after bolus. The reasoning was that if food is in the rumen, it could tend to flush out the copper bits.
Does anyone here follow this advice? Has anyone noticed a difference between withholding food or not?
Replies
Thank you very much!
There is this one, which was published in a scholarly journal:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19945224
There was also someone online who had their vet x-ray their goat a week after it chewed up a marshmallow with COWP in it, and you could still see the COWP in the rumen. You should be able to find that with a Google search.
Plus we do liver biopsies on dead goats to check copper levels, and I started top dressing the COWP after reading the study linked above in 2010, and our goat copper levels still fall right in the mid-normal range, just as they did when we were bolusing.
If you have seen Santa Cruz say that you must bolus copper, they are simply repeating what was said on the Saanendoah site 10+ years ago. I'm very grateful to that site for helping me to figure out our copper deficiency problem back in 2007, but I feel they're doing a disservice by keeping the site up with such outdated info in it because most people don't notice the fact that it hasn't been updated in all these years. I personally emailed Santa Cruz and asked them to send me the research that said you need to bolus rather than top dress, and they have none. Sadly, they sent me the exact picture of the x-ray of the goat that ate the COWP in the marshmallow and claimed that it proved you need to bolus. Sad for two reasons -- they stole someone else's picture AND they claimed it "proves" the exact opposite of what it actually proves. I won't buy anything from them as it's clear they're not really doing the research they claim to be doing.
Deborah, Can you reference this research? "...research has shown that there is no difference in absorption and benefits regardless of whether the copper is chewed or bolused."
I'd love to read more as I've been looking for any studies on this. My son wants to do a 4H project on copper bolus for goats. Thanks!
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Wow! The only medication of which I am aware that there should be no food for hours before or after is thyroid medication for humans. That is to be taken on an empty stomach (for at least four hours) which is why it is recommended first thing in the morning and with lots of water and no food for an hour afterward. To force a goat to be without food for nine hours seems inhumane to me. Though certainly not scientific, my common sense asks how can the copper be absorbed/digested if there is no rumen action because there is no food.
Thank you for the helpful replies! Copper in the morning, then, and no hangry goats=win!
We started doing liver biopsies on dead goats and then figured out how that corresponds with supplementation (or lack of) and how that corresponds to outward symptoms, such as faded coat, decreased parasite resistance, balding tail tip, face, ears, etc. We've continued doing liver biopsies on goats that died for whatever reasons so that we could continue to monitor it, and for the past 9 years, all livers have tested in the mid-normal range when the goat was up-to-date on copper supplementation.
Naomi D'Andrea said:
I'm very familiar with Hoegger. In fact, they printed an excerpt about mineral deficiency from Raising Goats Naturally:
http://hoeggerfarmyard.com/mineral-deficiencies-in-goats-an-excerpt...
Much of the info in that particular article is simply wrong and based on assumptions. There has been no research on withholding food from goats when giving copper, and it is just silly to think that a goat's digestive system is ever empty. If it is, you have a VERY sick goat! I am not even going to get into everything you'd have to do to get a goat going again. So, if the goat's digestive system isn't empty after a few hours, then what is the point of withholding food? They are just thinking that it's no different from a human's stomach, which is incorrect. A goat eats something and it goes into the rumen where it sits for awhile before being regurgitated, re-chewed, and then swallowed where it goes into the second stomach. You can't "flush" out the COWP, and research has shown that there is no difference in absorption and benefits regardless of whether the copper is chewed or bolused.
Sad to say that anyone who gives any time period for supplementation -- such as six months in this article -- does NOT know much about copper deficiency because it varies tremendously from one farm to another and sometimes between animals on the same farm. You have to watch the goats, not the calendar.
Naomi D'Andrea said:
I like Hoegger for their variety of products, but I don't agree with some of the ways they raise goats. They firmly believe in taking kids away from Mama right away and bottle feeding, for one. Then they try to make it sound like that's healthier for the kids. My personal opinion is that unless the dam is ill, it's never healthier to separate mothers and babies. Health exists over a continuum, and while a kid may appear to be thriving on milk replacer, who knows what effect that has on their lifetime health?
Ok, off my soapbox now. You sound like you have really good instincts, trust them. :)
Naomi D'Andrea said:
Here's the article (from a farming supply website): http://hoeggerfarmyard.com/copper-deficiency-in-goats/
Thank you for your comment. May I ask how you found the timing that works for your particular herd? Do you just watch them for a visual clue that they're beginning to get deficient, or is there some other way for us to figure out our own timing needs?
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
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