Just had a copper thought need some help.

[porkchop48]

I seem to be a posting fool lately.. Or maybe just spend too much time reading.

My alpine aborted her kid a few weeks ago. She is a black and white goat. I have noticed lately they some of her hair mainly toward her back legs are starting to turn a reddish color and curl a bit. Also now that I think about it my Apline buck has some curlish hair going on.

Maybe why she aborted was she is copper deficient? Maybe? Just reading all the potential signs and symptoms makes me wonder.

So my next step it to order what I need to order from Jeffers this week. SO now I am instantly panicing that my goats are going to die before it gets here. A couple of the boers have dry flakey skin on their back legs. ( dry flakey skin, not shinty coat - more symptoms)

Then my next fear is what if I Bolus it into their lungs? Is that possible to do?

What all do I need to order from Jeffers? What size gun should I get ( that word just makes me freak even more, nothing against guns, I do like them, just worried about killing my goats) Which copper should I get?

And while I am at it should I get some red cell just to have on hand?

It is amazing how much these goats that were bought to clear the fields have worked their way into my lives I think I may be a bit pathetic

 

[Roll farms]

I'm only going to comment on the flaky leg part, b/c I don't know if you're area / goats are copper deficient and since I nearly killed Penny w/ a copper overdose....the last thing I feel qualified to do is advise anyone on it's use....

Anyhow...if the dry flaky skin is toward the bottom of the legs, it could be leg mites. I inject ivermectin at 1cc per 110# to treat that. Repeat in 14 days.

 

[20kidsonhill]

lol.

Dry flacky skin could for sure be a sign of mites, especially if it is starting by the pasterns and working its way up the legs, it has been really bad this year.

Copper bolusing really isn't the best way to increase the blood copper levels, the best way is to have out good loose Goat minerals with at least 1,700 ppm of copper in it.

Copper boluses are made of Copper Oxide and not Copper sulfate and absorbs poorly. Most people are using the copper boluses to help with barber pole worm problems.

What kind of minerals do you have out for your goats?



To answer your question about the bolus gun, it isn't really a gun, it is a rod and honestly we don't use it, The copasure also comes with a rubber attachment that you can put on the end of a drenching syringe, you put the attachment onto the end of the syringe, fill syringe with water, we used a 30cc syringe, Then put the bolus into the rubber attachment and stick it down their mouths as far as possible and push the water in like you are going to drench with it. And hopefully they swallow it. We hated trying to use the bolus gun. Actually, out of everything we do with the goats, trying to get the copper boluses into them is not easy.

We are now looking into getting a tubing kit with the tube and 60cc syringe, and cutting the tube so that it is only 3 or 4 inches long and just making a drench with the copper oxide rods that comes in the boluses and drenching the dose. We tried using the drenching syringe, but the hole was too small and all the copper oxide rods were stock in the syringe.


Sorry for not giving an easy answer.

As far as the red Cell, we only use it if the goat is anemic and then just a couple times along with an iron shot and Vitamin B shot.

 

[nomad]

You may find this article interesting....

Symptoms of copper deficiency:
Coat is rough and starey, faded in coloured goats, and greyish in white goats. Goat holds on to old coat much longer than usual and when it falls out the goat may be almost naked for a week or so because the new hair is not coming through readily. Sunburn on the naked skin slows down hair growth still further.

Ribs and vertebrae stick out very noticeably as the goat carries no extra flesh. Where calcium intake is compromised by lack of copper, you may find knobs on the ends of the floating ribs and the points of the jaw. Fractures of even such solid bones as shoulderblades can occur.

The head looks too big for the body.

Leg bones look very fine and joints tend to be enlarged. Again this is lack of copper compromising calcium uptake. Goat walks cautiously and doesnt want to jump on and off heights. Probably wont play much either because the bones arent supporting it very well.

Erect-eared goats tend to carry them drooped to 20 minutes to 4 position, and head low, may be permanent frown signs of permanent headache. Ive never had Nubians so I dont know what their ears do with copper deficiency I would expect them to go bald round the edges, though, same as erect-ears often do.

Severe anaemia check insides of eyelids. Cream is bad, grey is worse, and green is just about totally lacking in haemoglobin.

Worm count in my herd at its worst varied from nil to 7500 the nil goat was sicker than the 7500, btw most were about halfway between. Worm burden is uncontrollable in severe copper deficiency because the goats immune system is too far down to resist the little sods. Milk yields may disappear to nothing, though its surprising just how
long they stay in milk, even though looking like concentration camp inmates.

Depressed appetite.

Kids born with swayback (enzootic ataxia).

In really severe deficiency the animals may have chronic scours, sometimes of semi-digested food, because they havent enough blood and blood quality to make the gut work properly (luckily mine never reached that stage).

When most of these symptoms are present, you may then find bald tips to tails my experience its one of the last symptoms to appear, and doesnt always. Some of mine, the only decent hair left on them was the tuft on the tip of the tail.

As I wrote this off the top of my head, I may have missed a symptom or two, but these are enough to be going on with.

The following letter was in reply to a vet whose colleague had seen some goats poisoned by copper treatment.

This sort of thing is what worries me when people want my copper regimen. It is meant for treating copper deficiency, and is at a level which will not cause toxicity in a deficient goat. Obviously, as your quote shows, it will cause toxic symptoms in goats which are not copper deficient. But trying to get it through peoples thick heads that the goats
must show several serious symptoms of copper deficiency before they start throwing copper about is very very difficult. It seems to be the fashion to think that a bald tail tip is copper deficiency, and in 99 cases out of 100, its nothing of the sort. A goat that is fat and shiny and eating and milking well is NOT copper deficient, however bald its tail Id be looking for a tail muncher.

I would want to be sure that the goat was exhibiting serious copper deficiency symptoms before giving copper. I do emphasise this to people, but have no control over how much of what I write is passed on to other people.

My dose rate for an adult dairy goat with copper deficiency is using 1% solution of copper sulfate, 20 mls twice daily for 7 days, rest 7 days, repeat 7 days, rest 7 days, 20 mls once daily for 7 days, rest 2 weeks, and repeat the 20 mls once daily for 7 days if necessary. Reason for the rest periods is to monitor the goats closely. If they dont drop back in improvement and yield during the rest period, you stop dosing the extra copper. Strict record-keeping and observation is essential. So is not exceeding the correct dose. It is very hard to get through to people how invidious copper poisoning is. Theres very little between enough copper and too much, and a goat can tip over into toxicity without the handler realising it. Must say I have never seen discoloured urine in a copper poisoned goat myself, and
Ive had to treat a few. Only one was mine, and I was using a high copper kelp powder on her, it was years before I developed the 1% solution method. Two of the others had been overdosed on high copper liquid seaweed. One had been accidentally exposed to Bordeaux mixture. This is the first time Ive ever heard of anyone overdosing on what could have been my recipe. I can only keep emphasizing that people should not treat goats for copper deficiency unless they show several serious symptoms, and all the other things they have tried to correct the goats condition have failed.

- Irene Ramsay.

This article was originally published in New Zealand in 1980. Updated by Irene in January 2007.

 

[elevan]

As with all things you really should discuss with a vet. Especially if you're in panic mode over it.

Copper Oxide Wire Particles (as said before) absorb slowly and therefore need to be given on a scheduled basis.

The question has been brought up before whether you should have a blood test done before supplementing...it's certainly a good question and one that you might want to consider. The thing is that a lot of the symptoms of deficiency are the same symptoms as toxicity...that's a pretty scary thing as Roll Farms pointed out.

 

[porkchop48]

Sorry for the late reply... Busy busy

I have the mana pro minerals out for the goats. Is that sufficient enough for copper?

 

[ksalvagno]

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on if or how copper deficient your area is. I have Manna Pro minerals out and still need to copper bolus my goats 3 times a year. But this is for my farm and my area. You need to find out what is needed on your farm.

 

[porkchop48]

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on if or how copper deficient your area is. I have Manna Pro minerals out and still need to copper bolus my goats 3 times a year. But this is for my farm and my area. You need to find out what is needed on your farm.

I am atleast in the same state as you... Where do i got to find this out?

 

[Pearce Pastures]

http://mrdata.usgs.gov/geochem/doc/averages/countydata.htm

The link above will take you to maps of various mineral levels in the U.S. including copper. It varies from county to county so even within the same state, you should check your area. Copper toxicity is dangerous too.

However, soil content is just one part of the equation....

"Copper deficiency may occur when animals graze on soils deficient in copper, soils with high Molybdenum levels (+2PPM); copper intake should be 5 to 8 times molybendum intake"

Info on molybendum
http://mrdata.usgs.gov/geochem/method.php?element=Mo

And there is more yet...article on copper and dairy goats
http://www.saanendoah.com/copper1.html

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Just another quick thought...Ohio is one state that has very high levels of MO in some areas and very little in others. In ksalvagno's area, the Cu is at 30.9 ppm and Mo is more than 5.7 ppm (so they would really need 45 ppm Cu to have a balance).
To the south and east of them, however, the numbers are different.