# Copper Deficiency - Is Loose Mineral Enough?



## MilkMan (Feb 3, 2010)

After doing some research, we have come to the conclusion that several of our milking does are copper deficient. My brown colored Alpine is having trouble holding her weight and her hair is either falling out or turning white. My Cou Blanc Alpines white hair is changing to a copper color, and neither of them are producing milk like they did last year. I also fear one of their kids was born w/ congeial copper deficiency, but the jury is still out on that one. As for the treatment options......We are considering copper bolusing, but would prefer to go a different route if possible. I just got some Sweetlix mineral (Caprine Milk Magnum), and will be offering it to them free choice. I am wondering if this alone might give them enough copper to get them back to a normal level. I realize it will take longer than the bolus, but over time do you think it will it replenish their deficiency? Any other suggestions are welcomed.
TIA


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

No I don't think so  I never have found a loose mineral (I've tried sweetlix, ADM's Grostrong (horse mineral), Orsheln's goat mineral, Cargill's Right now Onyx, Purina Cattle mineral and now Redmond Range mix (is what I've stuck with). None of these cut it without bolusing. Mine get the high copper mineral and the bolus. Doesn't mean that's what you need though, but sweetlix contains iron and iron blocks copper absorption so it doesn't balance things out for most of us.


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## lonestrchic23 (Jan 7, 2011)

I'd bolus & offer a high quality loose mineral. 

I'm still amazed at the improvements the copper bolus did for my girls 

If you don't have a large herd you can buy premade boluses for your goats from Ashely (poster above me). I've bought my boluses from her twice now...good price, fast shipping and, depending on the weight of your goat, it can be done for about $1 a goat give or take a few cents in either direction 

Bolusing isn't fun, but it's not awful either, and they last a while so it's not like you have to repeat the process every month....


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## MilkMan (Feb 3, 2010)

Ashley said:


> .....but sweetlix contains iron and iron blocks copper absorption so it doesn't balance things out for most of us.


You would think Sweetlik would know this and change the ratio accordingly.


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## NWgoats (Jul 17, 2008)

It is not the mineral. You may also have mineral antagonists that you are not aware
of that are keeping your girls from absorbing their copper. For example, our well water
has high amounts of iron and sulfur. These interfere with copper absorption. I use a
special mineral with high copper and still have to bolus 4 times a year. It is a pain, but
the difference in your goats will amaze you.

I used to use the Sweetlix, but it had lots of iron and in addition to what we already have,
it didn't work for us. However, my neighbor just a mile or two down the road bought some
of my girls. She has well water also, but apparently better than mine. She uses the Sweetlix
and the girls look great! So, you just have to find out what works in your location.


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## prairiegirl01 (Jun 2, 2008)

I will echo the bolusing benefits--lots of skin problems, haircoat issues, and one kid born with spinal problems to my Ober doe before I figured it out. Bolused this spring for the first time and I am stunned by the results! Go for it!

Chris


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## MilkMan (Feb 3, 2010)

NWgoats said:


> For example, our well water has high amounts of iron and sulfur.


When you say you have high amounts of iron in your water, how long does it take for the water to turn orange after you fill up a bucket?


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## NWgoats (Jul 17, 2008)

I have to clean out my buckets daily or they have an orange film on them.
When I fill a milk jug with water, you can immediately see that it is a different
color than the distilled water I have to buy for drinking. All my white clothes
are now orange. :/

And don't even get me started on the rotten egg smell!


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

The reality of the answer is, until you switch to the mineral and hopefully it contains more than just copper sulfate, then liver biopsy the first adult doe who you put down...nobody but another breeder who does do liver biopsy in your area, and boy it would have to be an immediate area...the answer is nobody knows. For years my liver biopsy numbers were normal high with just using the mineral (I only bolused incoming stock and bucks), it contained chelated and amnio acid forms of copper and copper sulfate. I also know Lee, who you can catch on facebook (Buck Run or Lee Jackson) has an article that totally poo poo's my whole iron theory, although it certainly once again isn't what happened at my farm. Something did change either with the minerals or something at the farm because before my minerals held my liver biopsy numbers at normal high, I only bolused incoming stock and bucks...with two liver biopsies in the last 3 years, they were low normal...so I am bolusing now. Vicki


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## MilkMan (Feb 3, 2010)

NWgoats said:


> I have to clean out my buckets daily or they have an orange film on them.
> When I fill a milk jug with water, you can immediately see that it is a different
> color than the distilled water I have to buy for drinking. All my white clothes
> are now orange. :/
> And don't even get me started on the rotten egg smell!


I was asking the question to compare your water to mine. Sounds like yours is a little worse. i get orange buckets, but not daily. So it could be my water is part of the problem.

Thank you everyone for your input. It has actually complicated things, but I guess it could result in fixing the problem correctly instead of trying something and wondering why it's not working.


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## Holly Govero (Mar 26, 2009)

Ditto what NWgoats about the water. I do know that my well water is awful with HIGH in iron and its very hard water and lots of calcium in it. I need to test the water anyways. I mean my shower have red or orange all over the shower. It s soo freaking hard to clean that stuff out!! Yeah I am embarrassed about it. I have thought about copper bolusing 3 times a year but I am scared to death! LOL. How can I test the water to make sure??? I am lil jealous becuz down the road their well water is better than mine. It is so weird.


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## MilkMan (Feb 3, 2010)

Holly Govero said:


> How can I test the water to make sure???


Your county health department should be able to test it free of charge, at least mine does.


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## MilkMan (Feb 3, 2010)

After doing some research about water that is high in iron and the effects on my chickens, I came across the use of 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide. i have discovered that if you use the correct amount, it will get rid of the iron (and manganize) in water. So.......if the iron that is in my water is contributing to my goats copper deficiency, wouldn't adding peroxide help take care of it? Anybody heard of this or tried it?


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## Goat Town (Nov 20, 2010)

Craig,

I'm coming to this conversation a little late because my computer was down. However, after seeing sure signs of copper deficiency in some of my herd I switched loose minerals. The minerals I was feeding were red in color meaning they were high in iron. I already knew our water was high in iron so I went about eliminating iron from my goats' feed. I couldn't do much about the water, but I sure could knock out the molasses from their feed and I switched to Onyx Right Now because it was not red and offered the same amount of copper as the "red" mineral I was feeding. A month later I'm seeing much improvement in my goat' coats and tails, but I'm still going to bolus. The Right Now mineral is the only thing available locally that isn't red, but it's never going to be enough to overcome the high iron content in their enviroment or their water.


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

For my herd, it is the sulfur in the water that is the biggest interference. I also wonder if there is too much molybdenum. They can't directly test for sulfur as it off gases before they can check the water sample. I sent my water sample in to a farm water testing company, but molybdenum was not on the panel they did.

We do have a whole house water filter that does filter the hose the water comes from for the barn. I can tell when it is time to change the filter when the water smells like eggs. 

I got "Payback" goat minerals, loose (not red)-- it is made by a company called CHS. I started these minerals about 2 months ago and the goats look better than ever and it is past the time I usually would have bolused. I am just noticing some signs on the growing kids (they outgrow their supplements!). I will give the kids some Multimin injectable and wait to see if the Payback minerals are doing better than what I was using (Purina).

I also got a Goat Protein Pail from Jeffers and the goats do like this. It doesn't have a whole lot of copper, though. 

Do you guys really think the molasses in sweet feed can interfere with copper absorption?? If so, maybe I will change my grain. I don't feed most of my goats much grain (maybe 1/2 cup per day) except the does in milk. Do you think that just 1/2 cup of grain would influence the mineral levels? The does in milk have gotten a bolus more recently than the rest of the herd.

Wheat do you all do on young kids? Bolus at how old? Does anyone else do Multimin injections?

I know these are alot of questions, but this is the first forum I have found that is actually discussing the mineral requirements (specifically copper) in depth. I have been working for years to adjust my herds levels, and I have felt most of the time that I was the only one who was researching this topic-- some of the other forums never discuss it. I also have some pygmies and pygoras, and in those breeds no one I know is really supplementing copper much. I have found that my pygmies and pygoras show the low copper signs before my milk goats even-- I guess the breeders have thought these were normal signs??


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Julie molasses is high in iron, it also masks products in feed that livestock wouldn't eat unless it was sugar coated, lastly it causes rumen acidosis...it was the first thing I did when I started learning about our copper problems, moved off of sweet feed.

For my herd, no, my minerals aren't enough, I bolus the entire herd twice a year.

Lee on here uses multimin, she has beautiful stock and is in Arkansas.

Something sulfur also does is interferes with the uptake of ammonium chloride if you are using it in your bucks feed for urinary calculi, even on treatment levels of AC bucks die of urinary calculi in the two areas of Texas that are known for rotten egg water 

With my kids being so fast growing, giving 12 week old doelings there first bolusing when they are just 50 pounds, but is then 80 pounds in September when I bolus the herd, then is over 100 pounds by December and being bred, I do bolus them again in September with the rest of the herd even though they just got bolused in June. This year I am using multimin every 3 months on my doelings since it is the one group (OK maybe 2 with the bucks) I hate bolusing more than any of them, I would so much rather just give them subq injections. I am super pleased with my young FF size etc, and don't see copper problems here. It's tough to have so much guessing going on in our herds.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Thank you Vicki. Let me clarify a bit and add some things I have learned about mineral usage in this year of not breeding. We used to have good access to Techmaster- low salt - good levels of chelated mins with enticing aromas of yeast to entice and improve use if put out fresh daily. Our goats looked like waxed glass year round no matter the length of the coat it was shiny and lay in a smooth pattern with no swirls and directional changes.

When we decided to skip breeding last fall it corresponded with no more techmaster in our area and I went to a cheaper mineral- higher salt and lesser of everything so they did not consume as much but I also continued to bolus. A key fact is that I STOPPED FEEDING ALFALFA because I was not going to be pushing milk production or trying to offset calcium drops during kidding. Well dear folks... My goats look rough :/. Not really bad but they have swirls that I see in other herds that have excellent management but do not feed alfalfa. So I am tempted to draw the conclusion that calcium levels are affecting coat quality as well as the micro mins. I will be breeding this fall and will start back on alfalfa and will be interested to note if without changing anything else we get back our slick coats. I am stuck with paying shipping on techmaster if I want it so it will not be part of my management any more.

We used to use Mineral Max before there were goat formula mineral mixes and before Joyce let us all know about bolusing and just how much copper intake goats need. I learned this from a cattle farm near me. With bolusing and Techmaster I did not need it and discontinued using it unless someone seems really off which never happens in pasture ornaments- it is working girls that have bad days . However when you see skin and coat issues or want an instant slick out or need repair on skin for an impending visit or show it does an overnight miracle because it is so available in the system. It wears off much faster than bolusing so I prefer bolusing altho I do bolus at half the 6 month dose every 3 months so that I do not have that inbetween time where their coats start to go funky. This is an obvious signal of deficiency and there are many other things happening from allowing the levels to fluctuate that are not as evident- like drop in immune function and feed conversion rates as well as parasite resistance so I prefer not to let that seesaw happen if I can help it. 

Something I learned from a person that formulates mineral mixes...red minerals do not necessarily mean that you are feeding added iron. I was stunned to learn this but they use iron oxide to color the mix and it is very very very low availability in ruminants. So the form your iron is in will determine if it is actually blocking uptake. To be included in the actual mineral list it will be in the sulfate form. I was also told the iron was added to build weight in the batch since cattle don't care what color it is but is often not even listed on the tag. So it is like filling a bag of flour with dirt to make it weigh more. 

It is a pain to try and help others with minerals because there are so so many variables but yes- any molasses is too much molasses IMO And zinc is overlooked in the skin/coat/immunity relationship too.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Can you also include your old info on the injectable form of copper minerals you used...it's un searchable for some reason. Vicki


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

http://arkansasagnews.uark.edu/574-24.pdf

This is super interesting, there is a vet script multimineral injectable and an OTC one, both were given with also a control group. Both groups were found to be healthier, bounced back from shipping fever and also gained more when given the OTC or vet script over the control group. Like bolstering with selenium it is also only in the system of a cow for about 21 days with no raise at all in any of the minerals at 28 days. Vicki


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all this valuable information!!! 

And glad you joined in, Lee. I've missed you here at DGI.


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

Thanks everyone for the info. I'm going to switch off of sweet feed ASAP! I was feeding a pelleted horse feed that was almost exactly the same ingredients and nutrient levels as the goat chow I normally feed, but went back to the Alber's Super Goat for milking does. Anyone feed horse feed to your milking does? I have a hard time finding non-medicated (rumensin) goat feed around here. And the horse feed does not have the rumensin in it. I really don't have a mill around that can mix feed for me (and also I am only going through about 50 lbs per week, and can only store about 200 lbs at a time, so it does not work for me to get custom feed mixed). I have found a 14% horse feed that I also put some BOSS and some alfalfa pellets in to get it up to about 16 %. But... the alfalfa pellets I have been getting make a couple of my does have a weird flavor in their milk. Do you think 14% is enough, especially in the summer, when the goats are getting good browse? They get very good orchard grass hay, good browse and the milking does get some alfalfa hay too. Maybe I should also try some Chaffhaye for the alfalfa. Maybe that's a better route than the alfalfa pellets.

Sorry to get a little off topic from the original topic of Copper loose minerals. Just trying to look at the whole picture! 

Another question for the nubian breeders out there that are dealing with copper deficiency signs in the hair coat. I am new to nubians and just have one black nubian doe with some white in her coat. She does get a little brownish/reddish with low copper, but I think she has some dark brown in her color anyhow. She has triplet 7 week old mini-nubian bucklings right now who are wildly moon spotted. One is black and white, the other two are a very dark "taupe"- for lack of a better word, with some black and white spots. The dark brown on them now has white "roots", is this low copper??? Some other breeders around here say "oh no, that's just their baby color and they will be light brown or white with spots when they are adult". I'm wondering if everyone around here just thinks low copper changes are the normal now. I gave these babies a tiny dose of Multimin at a couple days old, but haven't given them any boluses yet. The black and white one doesn't have the lighter "roots" but he does have the reddish tinge. So, again, are "white roots" normal on brown areas on nubians??


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Kids that young are not going to have copper deffiency they have very little needs when it comes to copper, as kids grow, are bred and come into milk, or bucks that are used heavily, have higher copper needs than babies or pets.

Here horse feeds are MUCH higher quality that goat feeds, you also aren't going to have poor quality proteins in the horse feeds. They (brood mare and foal) also have higher fat. Now they do contain molassas and you can smell it in the pellets, you can also see it on the tag...even the new pellet I am moving to is going to have some molassas in it because she is a horse gal and there was no talking her into moving away from it 

If you can get chaffe hay all the time, than feed it, it can be fed in the same style feeders as alfalfa pellets, and it is an excellent product.....IF, you can open the bale and feed most of it in 1 or 2 days tops, in wet/hot/humid weather you really don't want opened bags of silage sitting around molding, it will kill your goats. 

On the alfalfa pellets, what you want to see rather than just looking at the protein is to find pellets that contain 100% alfalfa only....out here 15% pellets contain grain by products.

The biggy with goats is to settle into a routine, they thrive on routine, so pick a feed and stick to it. Vicki


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

Wonder why my goats were having weird flavor milk from the alfalfa pellets? Have tested it a few times with different brands of pellets and it is for sure the pellets doing it.

Do the kids get their copper from the does milk? If my does are running copper deficient would that make the kids deficient? Wondering why they are getting the white "roots" in their coats.


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