# Selenium Toxicity?



## Nanno (Aug 30, 2009)

This isn't necessarily about poisonous plants per se, but I wasn't sure where else to put it since it does involve high selenium content in weeds.

For the last three summers, ever since we moved to Colorado City, Cuzco has experienced hair loss and and flaky skin on his back in June and July. I thought it was probably a mineral deficiency so I started feeding him minerals specifically designed for goats. I also thought it could be an allergic reaction of some sort, a fungus, a bug-related problem, or even sunburn. I used different supplements and shampoos to try to combat the problem but to no avail. I'm confident that the problem cleared itself up with no help from any of my "remedies" by mid-August (which incidentally was when the summer turned wet both years).

This past summer it began happening again, but it was not nearly as bad as the previous year until I gave Cuzco a dose of Golden Blend goat dewormer. I've used this dewormer in the past, but never in summer. Almost immediately afterwards almost all the hair fell out on his back--the worst the problem has ever been.

Not long afterwards I was riding horses with a friend and she was telling me about how her mare's tail was finally recovering from falling out the previous summer. Apparently the horse had gotten selenium poisoning from eating too many of the selenium-rich weeds common to our area in dry summers. Her mane and tail had fallen out, her skin had become flaky, and her coat thinned considerably. This was not the first horse I had seen with these problems, but it was the first one that was diagnosed, since all the other horse owners had done the exact same thing I was doing with Cuzco--anti-fungal shampoos, supplements, iodine, etc. One of them later regretted her hesitancy in calling the vet since her horse eventually got so bad it sloughed its hooves and never recovered.

As soon as I suspected selenium overload, I immediately moved Cuzco off the weed browse he'd been getting, and I quit giving him supplemental minerals for a while since all of them contain selenium. I suspect that Cuzco was already overloaded on the mineral when I gave him the selenium-containing dewormer and basically poisoned him, because the reaction was immediate and severe, with hair falling out of his back in huge clumps. Interestingly enough, as soon as I made changes to his diet, his hair started growing back in thick and glossy and even though it had been his worst case so far, he recovered from it sooner than in the previous two summers even though our mid-to-late summer was very dry this year.

The above analysis is just my theory. I told another goat owner my suspicions about selenium and she said this was probably not it since selenium _deficiency_ is usually the problem (although she didn't give any good reasons why this should be the case in our selenium-rich area). In any case, I will be interested to see what next summer brings. If it turns dry I'm going to keep Cuzco off the weedy browse (much as he loves it) and see if a plainer diet doesn't help keep the coat on his back.


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## sweetgoatmama (Dec 10, 2008)

There is a bloo test for selenium levels and if you are concerned I'd have it done. It's just as bad to have too much as too litle, although there are few areas in the US that have that problem, where you are is one of them.


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