Sharing our copper / selenium problem ...Sept. update / pics pg 8

[Roll farms]

Some of my goats look like CRAP.

Some of them look fine. Mostly the boers. The Toggs look mighty fine, too though...Our bucks all look ok, although the Nub buck is still red in the rump even though he got an entire bolus in March.

Relevant stuff:
All does had selenium (BoSe) 5 and 2 wks prior to kidding.
All does had really, really crappy hay for 5 wks late winter (Feb-early March).
All does given copper sulfate drench last fall (Sept).
All does given copper bolus this winter (March) when their coats were dull / reddish / curly.
All does have been dewormed (if needed) and have good/ decent eyelid color / fecals. (Took a random sample in a couple weeks ago...nobody had a high worm load).
All does given ADM goat power mineral daily as a top dress and it's put out 2x a week free choice.

Penny, a black Ob...turned almost completely red and is currently half bald.
Her skin all along her topline is dying and sloughing off, hair and all. ICK.
I put cyclence on her 2 days post kidding b/c I noticed she had some seriously dry skin. Vet thinks it's an allergic reaction to the cyclence.
(I used 2 cc on her, she's a 95# doe).
She was ALSO on Pen G for 14 days for a post-kidding uterine infection.
AND...I injected her w/ ivo. Nothing like muddying up the water, eh?


BUT...she's eating / pooping / peeing fine and produced 10.5# of milk yesterday and today.

Patch, a Boer I bought in January, had a realllllly thick / rough looking coat when I got her, lots of thick mohair stuff. We exposed her to a buck and saw her bred in late January. Put her out w/ the herd and noticed she was getting pushed away from the feed (by much smaller / younger does). I tried to let her 'tough it out' and find her place but she started looking alarmingly thin so we dewormed her (pale eyelids), brought her in to a seperate stall w/ our most friendly boer doe, and she still continued to look 'poor'.
Brought her into the barn a couple weeks ago. Noticed she had scaly leg mites, gave her a thorough brushing, injected her w/ ivo and put cyclence on her.

SHE BLEW HER ENTIRE COAT...in 4 days. WTH? I mean down to bare skin, it looked like we slick shaved her. NO hair. No broken skin...just...bald.

Kept her in the stall b/c it was still getting cold at night and gave her extra rations. She's gained a lot of weight back and her eyelids have pinked up. Got her up on the stand last week to check her over and...under her skin she is completely covered w/ small bumps, like a rash. ALL over.



I had the vet out last week to draw blood on several does.

He thinks Patch's problem is a bacterial dermatitis 'thing'....she's been on Pen G since Thurs. and was given a bath in HibiClens....the bumps are going away. Now she has the seriously dry scaly skin thing going on.
Her hair is coming back in just as soft and baby fine as can be.

He also confirmed what her empty udder told me...she ain't bred. Either didn't take or lost the pregnancy at some point.

I had him pull blood from Penny, Patch, Foxy (the ultra thin but fleshy doe, b/c she has a rough / curly coat), Dazzle, who's fine but got perpetually dry skin and pale eyelids) and Derri....who looks and acts fine. She'll be our 'baseline'.

I know blood tests aren't as accurate as a biopsy, but I'm not willing to kill any of my girls to get truly accurate results.

I'll let y'all know if I find out anything useful...should be next week.

 

[SDGsoap&dairy]

I think you posted once, long ago that too much copper can present with symptoms identical to a deficiency. Having bolused, drenched, and provided free choice minerals is it all that likely they are deficient? Is it more likely that Penny is getting too much?

That's a real stumper, Roll. In particular because you're not willy nilly about nutrition with your herd.

Looking forward to some experienced responses.

 

[freemotion]

Glad it's not just me.....no bald goats here, but some rusty thighs and frizzled coats. Did all that you did. Big difference here was a batch of hay, everyone went south within a month of getting that. It looked like great hay, but was not leafy, was second cut but a bit stemmy, and all grass. Probably from heavily fertilized fields. Wish I could get someone to bale up a field of weeds for me, we have great goat weeds in the neglected fields around here!

Hmmm......think I'll start asking around a bit...

 

[20kidsonhill]

I think we are having a similar problem with our hay this past winter, we had a very dry summer, and even the farmer commented that his plan was to fertilize heavy so the grass would grow like crazy when it did finally rain. the hay seemed very nice, not old or coarse and the goats ate it really well, but everyone seems so rough coated coming out of the winter, worse than I remember in past years.

I can't decide if it is me just getting pickier or what is up with it.

 

[ksalvagno]

I'll be interested in hearing your results. I'm having the same basic problems you are having. I have to believe that this weather has some input into this. My girls with the staph or whatever it is are on Excede and cleaning udders with Hibiclens. I copper bolus'd in December and April. My girls also got a Bose shot 4 weeks prior to birthing. I use Sweetlix Meatmaker goat mineral which they have free choice. I still have some fish tails and some goats have a rough coat.

I decided to try Dr Pollards Immune Booster herbs. So they have been on it for a few days now. Will see what happens. I am also giving them organic Iodine. I don't have a local source for kelp and it is just too cost prohibitive to buy and ship.

 

[jodief100]

Same problems here. Red coats, fishtail and weak kids at birth. We ran out of hay so the goats had to go on exclusive pasture a little earlier than I would have liked. There was plenty but it was all early growth.

No decent hay to be found, the pasture was better. People were selling two year old hay at $5 a bale.

The round bales my nighbor put of for his cows were solid mold on the bottoms.

I really hope this torrential rain doesn't stop and not start again till Novemebr like it did last year.

 

[20kidsonhill]

Same problems here. We ran out of hay so the goats had to go on exclusive pasture a little earlier than I would have liked. There was plenty but it was all early growth.

No decent hay to be found, the pasture was better. People were selling two year old hay at $5 a bale.

The round bales my nighbor put of for his cows were solid mold on the bottoms.

I really hope this torrential rain doesn't stop and not start again till Novemebr like it did last year.

You wont hear me complaining about all these rain, even if I have to worm more and treat for cocci more.

 

[poorboys]

i had some after kidding that looked like crap too, i dosed them with ivermic 1% injectable. they looked like they had mange, one i forgot what i was doing and gave her the dosage of ivermec plus, but everything came out fine, they all have nice shiney coats, but they do need copper bolus, the black ones have red tints on them. so between that and the cl deal have my hands busy.

 

[Our7Wonders]

I've been posting about this same kinda stuff going on in my does - since back in January. Clean fecals, rough coat, serious shedding (in the middle of winter), pale eyelids, scaley skin.

I'm new at this and don't have a baseline to compare to. It's frustrating. My does are losing condition now too. Milk production fell over the last couple days. I just started adding rice bran oil for the last couple days trying to get some weight back on them - I'm hoping the drop in milk is because of the new supplement - the decline started the day after adding the oil. I'm hoping they bounce back quickly.

I've been suspecting hay all along, it's the only variable here that could account for it. It looks good to me, but I'm a hay novice. It's got lots of alfalfa leaves all through it and the goats gobble it up, but I'm wondering if it's not covered in pesticede/herbicide/fertilizer junk. I tried to get a hay analysis but there isn't anyone local that can run it for more than just the basic protein content. I can fork out an arm and leg and ship it off somewhere else to have them run it, but by the time I spend for that I could buy a ton of organic alfalfa when it's ready. I can't affor $12 a bale so my poor girls are having to suffer with crap hay until new hay is cut and available here. I'm trying to add everything else I can think of to their feed to help compensate for the lack of nutrition in their hay. I still have yet to do blood work on all of them - it's my next step.

Please keep us posted Roll, I'd love to know the results.

Debbi

 

[cmjust0]

I really think the red hiney/fishtail thing *can be* copper, but that it also may not be copper related at all.. I've got some does that are red-hinied with fishtails, and that's after the whole herd's gone through like 200lbs of really good mineral with good levels of highly-bioavailable copper over the last couple years.. And they're up on their selenium..

I dunno what it is, but...well, I'm just not convinced those are strictly symptoms of copper/selenium/mineral deficiency. I think they're just things that people happened to have noticed, and things that -- for whatever reason -- have a higher probability of going away after a dose of copper.

Let us know what ya find out. And good luck.