# Selenium and copper in minerals



## naturalgoats (Jan 3, 2011)

Hi,
I just spoke to my local ext. office and was told that my area is fairly low in selenium and copper. the guy said I could use any goat mineral and that would be enough.... but sweetlix has 1750 ppm copper and 50 ppm selenium while southern states ( what I've been feeding)has 400 ppm copper and 32 ppm selenium! what is right??

I saw online that selenium deficiency might be connected to cracking knuckles and my boys certainly have an issue with that.... any way any help would be greatly appreciated. 
Thanks,
Miranda


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

Hi there... :wave: 

Does the feed stores where you live... have other brands of goat minerals? check how much each has.....Or you can also check out some of the cow minerals and maybe blend them.... :wink:


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## nancy d (Oct 5, 2007)

The SweetLix, hands down over Southern :thumb: 
For awhile we were using cattle 12:12 but the local mill changed the formula to a whole lot more iron so we went back to SweetLix Meat Maker.


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## naturalgoats (Jan 3, 2011)

hey thanks.. 
I actually was just using those two for a reference. What I am trying to figure out is what is the right sort of amount.... I've thought about Ca but not selenium before......
It sounds like more is better.... how much is too much? Thank you so much.. I'll look into some cow minerals.. Thanks,
M.


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## naturalgoats (Jan 3, 2011)

oh and by the way... has any one seen this? http://tin.er.usgs.gov/geochem/county.p ... st-central
the link is for my county... I'm really low selenium but pretty high copper...
any one know if this is a reliable source?
Thanks,
M.


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## naturalgoats (Jan 3, 2011)

and again... http://tin.er.usgs.gov/geochem/doc/aver ... tydata.htm in case this is of interest to any one


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## naturalgoats (Jan 3, 2011)

sorry for the many short posts but I keep finding more questions. can goats have a copper overdose? 
nancy d where do you get your meat maker. I don't really want 25 lbs for just my two.... and the shipping from jeffers is as much as the minerals themselves.... any suggestions?
Thanks


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## liz (Oct 5, 2007)

I live in Armstrong County in PA....The map shows that there are high levels of copper here but I had copper deficient goats. Iron and Molybedum inhibit absorption from plants...Anyhow, I use Manna Pro goat minerals, it comes in an 8 lb bag and Tractor Supply carries it, it has 1350ppm copper, 12ppm selenium. I've used it for well over a year now with good results.


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## milkmaid (Sep 15, 2010)

Naturalgoats, that is a very interesting site! I wonder how accurate it is. Our soil is simply red with iron, and they say our area is low in iron. :?


> can goats have a copper overdose?


Yes, they can. If I understand correctly, there are two types of copper poisoning - chronic and acute.


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## nancy d (Oct 5, 2007)

I dont know the ceiling for copper but overdosing does not happen often. Its the last thing I would be concerned about.
Unless the mineral co made a ginormous mistake with added copper which did happen once several yrs ago...always check your tags & the contents for unusual color or condition but you want to do that with all feed & supplements as a regular precaution regardless.
The most SweetLix had was 1850ppm if I remember right. Its at the local feed store.


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## jay13 (Apr 12, 2009)

excellent web site! I love being able to see what the local concentrations of different minerals are! Makes me more aware of what is going to be needed deficiency wise (more than likely). Thank you for sharing


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## firelight27 (Apr 25, 2009)

I live in a selenium deficient area, and have found that the selenium in goat minerals isn't enough to compensate. I give BoSe injections twice a year to all my goats.


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## nancy d (Oct 5, 2007)

firelight27 said:


> I live in a selenium deficient area, and have found that the selenium in goat minerals isn't enough to compensate. I give BoSe injections twice a year to all my goats.


Yep, same here Firelight.


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## lissablack (Nov 30, 2009)

If you are just using a good loose mineral, like the sweetlix, I would bet you don't have to worry about copper overdose. The issue with copper overdose comes with the supplementing in other ways in addition to the minerals. The trouble with copper toxicity is that you can't tell you have a problem until it is very late indeed, and you are more than likely going to lose the animal to copper poisoning. Then since most of the time we can't afford a necropsy, we don't find out what happened, so we really have no idea how common death from copper overdoses is. 

Jan


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