copper toxicity

[pygmybabies]

I went to a meeting the other day on goat health. The lady speaking was Charlotte CLifford-Rathert, DVM of the Linclon University in Jefferson City MO..lots of info, and I really enjoyed it. If I understood correctly as people ask about different things they have heard that work for goats, she does the research on them. She said they are seeing goats with copper toxicity the last few years as people are giving too much copper to the goats.

She also talked about Apple Cider VInegar and they are seeing some benefits with it, as people were saying it was good for them. So she is doing the research. She was very helpful and informative and I am hoping to make it to some other events. She also does a 4 hour class onn FEC (fecal egg counts) I am looking forward to going to this as well.

[CJBegins]

When and where is the class on fecal egg counts? I would love to go.

[Alice In TX/MO]

I've been to her class. She does a great job.

She mentioned that about the copper at the workshop I went to also. I can't remember if anyone asked what form of copper people were using for the overdosed goats.

[pygmybabies]

She didnt talk a lot about it but said that it stay in the liver I believe and builds up. I am going to send her an email and ask her to let me know when she does another one of those classes. She has the microscope you have to bring your own (the goats) poop. I will let you know when it is.

[CJBegins]

I appreciate that very much! Got poop, will travel! LOL

[Awnry Abe]

Hey pygmybabies, I was there too! We are fortunate to have Lincoln U doing those sessions. I thought the Doc did a great job. I learned quite a bit. I came away determined to learn to do fecals on our animals.

[wintrrwolf]

Whaaaat and I missed it??!

[lexa]

I have wonder if copper or any mineral toxicity is caused by people ether bollusing or putting minerals directly on goats grain or mixed in with the feed? I just finished reading Natural Goat care book and the author provides minerals free choice and states that goats will take only as much as they need. I tend to believe this because I have read accounts of people who got mineral deficient animals who would gobble minerals offered to them.

["SPIKE"]

I also wonder what is being done to create a copper toxicity situation.
I use goat loose minerals sold by the Tennessee Farmers Co-op. This time of year it is real humid around here and there seems to be a lot of waste when provided in a seperate container so I started trying to put out less.

The label on the package states "Consumption should be between .25 and .31 oz per head per day. Do not exceed .31 oz per head per day as this consumption level provides the maximum allowable level of 0.7 mg of selenium per head per day."
( I had forgotted this amount was based on selenium and not copper amounts.)
The label states Copper levels are min. 1700 ppm to a max. of 2100 ppm.
My goats do not show signs of low copper.

A few weeks ago, I weighed the minerals and determined that approximately 1 tablespoon would be within the required weight amounts. I started adding this amount to their feed in the morning. The loose minerals fall to the bottom and some days they are consumed right away. Other days they come back later and eat the rest of the minerals.
I know this is not how we are instructed to provide loose minerals, but this does seem to provide required amounts and help eliminate waste.

I welcome anyone's input on this. Is this a bad plan?

SPIKE

[wintrrwolf]

Hmmm...the liver's function is to catch and filter and if a certain type of copper is being stuck and building up in the liver I can understand it causing problems.
So there is copper in the mineral mix, there is copper in the feed, and some copper bolus twice a year. But not all of the copper is the same.
I would really love to read the reports on these incidences.

[Sherry in Iowa]

pygmybabies..thanks for starting this thread..I look forward to the dialog that it will hopefully start.

I've always questioned bolusing or giving animals specific minerals/vitamins unless the animal has been tested and is deficient. I don't understand giving extra copper to an entire herd if only one animal is showing signs of it.

I do understand one animal or two being low in copper or some other mineral. To me, they are like humans in the fact that one size does not fit all. One animal may have trouble .. but an entire herd would be suspect to outside influences. Such as a chemical on a feed or hay that is depleting all the animals minerals or interfering with absorption.

Anyway..I'm looking forward to some good info.

[mekasmom]

This is interesting to me simply because some people actually use colloidal copper. I've never actually used it, so I am not familiar with it, but it is interesting that it can cause toxicity.

[Alice In TX/MO]

You can not test live animals for copper deficiency. The only accurate test is a liver biopsy.

[Minelson]

I don't believe (anymore) that animals will eat the minerals they need. I don't get the feeling oh...I'm feeling short on iron, I think I'll take some iron pills. I do notice that I sleep better and get benefits from using certain vitamins and minerals...but I had to read up on them to learn what to take. I didn't "crave" them.
That is why I like using the Replamin. I know they are getting what they need and not relying on them to make that decision. Goats don't make the best decisions sometimes

Like eating a roll of insulation....hmmmm

[lexa]

Originally Posted by Minelson

I don't believe (anymore) that animals will eat the minerals they need. I don't get the feeling oh...I'm feeling short on iron, I think I'll take some iron pills.

Right, but even people get weird cravings when they are deficient in something and would eat things like chalk and dirt. I do get cravings for leafy greens and green pepers after my period and those foods are iron rich foods. It is known that in the wild animals would go to outcrops with salt deposits and lick the soil/rock to obtain minerals.
So in theory animals eating what they need should work.
What I wonder is it possible for animals to tell the difference between copper sulfate and copper carbonite, former being much stronger that the later one?

[Minelson]

Originally Posted by lexa

Right, but even people get weird cravings when they are deficient in something and would eat things like chalk and dirt. I do get cravings for leafy greens and green pepers after my period and those foods are iron rich foods. It is known that in the wild animals would go to outcrops with salt deposits and lick the soil/rock to obtain minerals.
So in theory animals eating what they need should work.
What I wonder is it possible for animals to tell the difference between copper sulfate and copper carbonite, former being much stronger that the later one?

I only crave potato chips and coffee and beer
I wonder why goats would show symptoms of copper deficiency when they have good copper minerals available?? I'm not arguing.. I love trying to figure stuff like this out
What were my goats craving when they ate the fiberglass insulation...cotton candy maybe

[ani's ark]

I think we subconciously know what our bodies need sometimes. I went away for a week and shudder to think what DH lived on for that time. But when I came back and asked this man (carnivore) what he'd like for dinner I almost fell down when he answered thoughtfully, "I feel like....a salad actually". He must have eaten nothing but meat and bread all week and was so vitamin deficient he was actually craving plant material!

I know Salma is choosy about her food, I can only assume she's selecting for nutrition by instinct and smell. She had a sort of frizzled hair look last winter, Cali-ann suggested it could be zinc deficiency by our area. So I got a high zinc and copper mineral paste and she sucked it from the tube the first 4 weeks. Toward the end of the tube she was no longer interested so I stopped giving it. I'll bring it back out again soon and see what response it gets. She also had gone to town on a ragwort plant that sprouted near the milkstand. I didnt know what it was, so let her. Later I discovered that ragwort contains high levels of copper and large amounts in a pasture can damage sheep by copper buildup in their liver, among other toxins. So she must have needed copper - as an experiment after the mineral paste was finished I walked her over to a ragwort plant and she turned her nose up at it. Hmmm maybe her copper is ok now?

Sometimes she nosedives into her baking soda, other days eats none. She sure looks a lot better since she came to live with me - her sturdy kids are double the size of other twin goats from the same herd, and her fur is soft and silky. This is NOT a scientific analysis, just my observation on one ornery goat!

So I'm wary of dosing and paying for goat weewee full of expensive excreted minerals they didnt need. I also handle each goat daily as I have small numbers so I can closely observe any changes - I understand larger scale farmers may not have that option, so herd dosing may be required when there is a known issue.
But I would be inclined to address issues at the soil level by testing my pasture, harrowing and liming my paddocks and sowing with a good mix of grasses and herbs to get the best possible mineral availability and uptake, rather than dealing with loosley defined ongoing deficiencies in my animals each year. Bodies are too complex and prevention is better than cure.
That's my two pennies I'll get off my soapbox now.

But lesson learned first and foremost - post all my questions and get the advice of the CGLs for ANYTHING goat related!

[Goat Servant]

Min your goats wanted to be famous so they ate insulation.

Spike that's probably about what ours our getting. I used to top dress it but like yours, most of it went to the bottom.
Then I left out plastic mineral feeders. They cake up in humidity, get feet put in them & LGDs chewed them up.
I now go out with a pan of it & risk my life.
They eat much more when it's cold & they are prego.

[CaliannG]

Goats WILL crave different plant material if it contains something their body needs....just like we do.

The problem with loose minerals is that they taste like iron and salt...which is fine if what your goat needs is iron and salt. If what your goat needs is cobalt, though, and she is actually fine on iron and salt, she isn't going to go scarf down a bunch of loose minerals to get her cobalt needs addressed.

Now, if all of us had a couple of hundred acres of land, all growing healthy, diverse plant materials, it would be a different story, as the goats could go eat the plants that had the highest amounts of whatever they needed. The only thing we would do is amend our soils (adding powdered copper oxide in deficient areas, or powdered selenium in other areas, ect., simply amending the soil so that it has whatever is lacking in the area) and let the plants do the rest, and we wouldn't worry about it.

Unfortunately, most of us only have a few acres, or the lucky ones, 10 or 20, that are fenced in for goats. Even those of use with large spreads only have a small amount of it fenced and patrolled properly to keep our goats safe. We just do not have the sheer acreage necessary to provide enough diversity to meet the mineral requirements of our goats.

Grasses, and even alfalfa, are not deep rooted enough to reach the mineral layers in the soil and bring those minerals up into plant matter. The same with grains, which are all a type of grass and shallow rooted.

So, our goats have to rely on us, and the supplements we give them, for thier mineral needs to be met.

Copper toxicity is possible in goats, but rare, and really only happens GENERALLY in those few areas that have exceptionally high soil copper content AND the goats are being supplemented with copper sulfate or copper amino acid complexes fairly heavily.

You cannot overdose a goat on copper oxide. No, not even if you bolus every day. Researchers have TRIED. If scientists who are TRYING to induce copper toxicity in goats via overdoses of copper oxide have still managed to fail miserably, what chance do YOU have of doing it?

Copper oxide boluses are also safe for sheep.

However, the same cannot be said of copper sulfate....and lots of folks try to correct deficiency on the cheap by going to the hardware store and picking up copper sulfate to dose their goats with. You have to be VERY careful with copper sulfate, because it is very, very easy to overdose goats on it. This is how goats die from going cheap....and also how people get the idea that it is easy for goats to get into toxic ranges of copper.

However, selenium and copper aren't the ONLY thing goats need....and if goats are getting basically hay and grain, or pastures that are mainly grasses, then they need a multi-vitamin/mineral to give them all of the trace stuff. What are the signs of magnesium deficiency? Agitation, anxiety and insomnia. How can you tell if a goat is suffering from insomnia? Or if her irritability is due to magnesium deficiency or being close to heat? And if she is anxious and not sleeping, is that a magnesium deficiency or a niacin deficiency?

And copper IS excreted by the animal. The reason copper can be so toxic to sheep is because their liver LOVES the stuff, and stores it covetously...then, whenever the sheep undergoas stress, such as shearing or lambing, the liver releases all that copper into the bloodstream and it causes havoc.

In goats, however, the liver isn't so greedy when it comes to copper, and it is released by the liver into the bile and excreted in the urine. In fact, I am WAITING for them to devise a simple test that doesn't involve a gas spectrometer to test copper levels in urine, as that would be a good meter to go by if we could get baselines of normal excretion rates.

On the other hand, maybe I'll just beg my husband for a gas spectrometer and do it myself. Although the last time I asked him for one, so that I could test nutrient levels in our garden vegetables, he told me no. He also nixed me getting an DNA sequencer. He's just a spoil sport that way...after all, what are things like tires for the truck and a front end rebuild next to a DNA sequencer or gas spectrometer? We can get bicycles, can't we?

[CaliannG]

Oh...and I forgot to add, the weird one of the group? Boers. Adult Boers ARE susceptible to copper toxicity. Not as bad as sheep, but much more than any other breed of goat. Boers just have to be different.