Hello!
I'm having something of a problem with our goats getting enough copper. They have free choice loose mineral (sweetlix meat maker) which they eat like its goat crack! We go through it like crazy. We also dose them with COWP when they show signs of needing it. We do not have a regular dosing schedule, but I'm wondering if others do, and how often you do dose. I've noticed that their coats are starting to get rough again, and our black goats are showing copper rust points. (When they are good on copper these particular goats are jet black and have the smoothest softest coats, so its easy to tell when they are getting deficient). Deborah knows who I'm talking about! :) Our first round of kids are just now about two months old and are already showing signs of deficiency. I just don't want to overdose them! I've been told its nearly impossible to overdose with COWP, but I'd love to have a bit more insight. We dosed all of the adults with 2 grams of COWP mid February. It seems like its far too early for them to be needing it again??
I think our problem is our well water. I really need to go get it tested. But until I do, is it safe to dose them again? If it is in fact our water, would it be preferable to dose more often or higher doses? Just for reference, our feeding regime is bucks get a small amount of grain (BOSS mixed in) once a day with ammonium chloride in it, free choice loose minerals and baking soda, and all the hay they will eat (grain only in the winter and early spring months). Does get Chaffhaye alfalfa twice a day topped with BOSS, free choice hay, baking soda, and minerals.
Thanks in advance for any insight you are able to provide.
Replies
Deborah,
You are wonderful, as always! It sounds like my dosing is the problem. I chatted with David some on my hypothesis regarding well water and he agreed. Then he reminded me that we have a natural sulfur spring on the property, so I'm betting that our water has elevated levels of sulfur. Plus our girls get Alfalfa twice daily, so they are getting a double punch to the gut! Literally! haha. Anyway, will dose again the ones that seem to need it. It is strange how some of our goats seem to do just fine with this dosing and some (like brother and wyatt) need far more to keep them up and looking their best (they don't look bad by any means, I just like them looking nice all the time). I'll check my feed label as well. It is nuts that they can label is as "complete" with such a low level of copper. I need to go check tags now! We are likely going to take them off of grain here pretty quick when the pastures catch up, but just yesterday we purchased another herdsire so I need to pay attention to which grain we use for his sake as well. I'm going to make a point of getting our water tested now too, especially since I know it's high because I want to know what kind of levels we're dealing with.
Margaret,
I'm going to dose the ones that are looking "rusty" with the dosage Deborah uses and see how that works. We had been doing it around every three months, but I always started noticing rust before it was time to do again. So it sounds like a higher dose or dosing every two months would solve the problem. I'll let you guys know how it works for us!
I can't tell you how great it is to have this forum as a resource. I reference it ALL the time and then if I can't find just the right thing, its priceless to know I'm only a few hours away from a couple responses. Thank you both!
Delinda, I seem to have the same problem and am starting to go on a 2 month schedule. So if you decide to do the same we will both see how it works out together. I sure don't think there would be an OD problem. But I do know that if they are deficient we will have problems. So we gotta do what we gotta do.
This may not be right for you, but we give 1 gram per 20 pounds (usually 4 grams for adult does and bucks) every three months, and if I forget, I usually start seeing signs of deficiency at 4 months. Also, we have copper levels done on goats that die, so I know we're keeping it in the right level for us. In addition to the high sulfur in our well water, our goats livers test high in molybdenum, which I'm pretty sure is because they get nothing but alfalfa during the winter since I can no longer find grass hay.
As far as your grain, check the label. Commercial goat feeds vary from 10 to 80 ppm!!! An animal nutritionist at Texas A&M told me to use one that was around 40 ppm when I started researching copper deficiency about six years ago. Purina Goat Chow and Dumor Sweet Formula goat feed both have 40 ppm. Other Purina and Dumor (TSC) goat feeds usually have 20 ppm, which means you'd have to feed twice as much to get the same amount of copper. It's silly that they all claim to be "complete" yet they are so different!