Mineral deficiency? Or is it toxicity?

[Nanno]

We had a rough kidding season here at Goat-O-Rama. Every single mama needed help delivering. All four kids born to Jezebel and Delilah had one or both legs back, and both does had a hard time pushing them out. Nubbin had a breech baby and a baby with both legs back. The third came out normally all by himself, but he was the ONLY one properly presented out of eight kids delivered this season. Tigerlily's kid was the worst of all. His head was so far back his nose was touching his tail and he had no legs presented at all. The only thing I felt going in was a hairy little shoulder. He didn't make it, poor thing. Four out of seven kids had crooked legs when they were born--two so severely they had to be splinted for a day. Luckily everyone has straightened out as they've grown. 

These crooked legs, malpresentations, and other birthing difficulties all point to selenium deficiency. We also have very obvious copper deficiency which started back in early April. I got right on it and gave everyone a copper bolus (some got two), and it did absolutely nothing at all. In fact, all the goats got worse as spring progressed. In looking at the mineral content of our soil, there is absolutely no reason why we should ever be copper or especially selenium deficient! Selenium poisoning is common in my area as we have some of the highest selenium content in the country around here. Everything points to selenium deficiency, but it cannot be due to lack of access, and same with copper. We feed a good loose mineral, but even without it our pasture should provide adequate minerals to keep the goats healthier than what we experienced. 

I decided it can't be a proper deficiency because we have everything here they need. It has to be caused by something blocking the goats' uptake of these minerals. I did more research and discovered molybdenum poisoning. Our soil has very high molybdenum content. I also fed a lot more alfalfa this past winter than I've ever fed, and alfalfa tends to be high in molybdenum. Legumes such as alfalfa absorb a lot more molybdenum from the soil than grasses, and if grown in a high-molybdenum area like ours we could end up feeding toxic levels of it. Molybdenum binds with copper and selenium in the digestive tract and prevents those minerals from being absorbed, resulting in "secondary" copper and selenium deficiency. So by feeding a high quality alfalfa all winter, I inadvertently set my goats up for molybdenum poisoning. Since I'm sure our own soil contains a lot of molybdenum as well, my goats had no way to avoid eating it even after I stopped feeding alfalfa this spring. I'm going to switch back to grass hay this winter and feed alfalfa more sparingly and see what happens. 

Here are a couple of articles about molybdenum and how it creates copper deficiency. They don't really discuss selenium, but I believe it can be blocked by excess molybdenum as well.  
http://www.cattletoday.com/archive/2003/May/CT271.shtml
https://www.canadiancattlemen.ca/2009/05...r-forages/

[DownUnder Gal]

Getting minerals right is a complicated business isn't it? There are so many interdependencies and links between them. Thanks for the links, I will read the articles with interest.

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

Hey Nanno, the leg thing is often times related to the kid not having enough room. We usually get a couple of kids each year that seem to have gotten stuck in one position in the womb and never got a chance to stretch their ankles. As for the selenium, I know you live in an area thats high in it. It could be more of a toxicity then a deficiency. Its a little spendy but if you can take blood from 4-6 of your adults and send it in to WSU, they can do a blood mineral analysis. Its not as solid as a liver sample but can give you an idea were you stand on your 4 main minerals.

[Nanno]

Dave, you stated in another thread that you wanted to look into the link between alfalfa and mineral deficiencies. You might take a look at the two articles I linked in the first post. Since your goats are dry lotted, you have the perfect set-up to do an experiment. You could feed your normal alfalfa diet to one group of goats and try giving half or two-thirds high quality grass hay with alfalfa to another group and see what difference it makes. I love what alfalfa does for our milk production, but I think I need to balance it out with more grass to keep from having another copper/selenium crisis next spring, especially since my goats have free access to our molybdenum-rich pasture.

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

Hey Nanno. I did some research. When you mentioned molybdenum, it rang a bell. I was going to post this days ago but forgot. Turns out were were on the same path. Molybdenum fertilizer is used heavily by hay farmers. So its not technically the alfalfa that causes the binding of minerals. I am just getting deeper in to this so cant speak to the facts yet. Guessing its mainly just another toxic metal. The crap thing is, moly fertilizers are cheap so farmers use em and makes me wonder, if moly is used in human consumables and if so how heavily is it used? I will at the least start adding the suggestion for people to talk to their hay grower and find out if they use a fertilizer with moly in it.

[Nanno]

Almost none of the local hay here is fertilized. However, we live in a super-molybdenum rich area. It's in our soil. One thing that is pointed out in several articles is that legumes such as alfalfa absorb and hold more molybdenum than grass, and this should remain true whether it's supplied through fertilizer or though the soil.

I don't want anyone to think that I'm totally against alfalfa now. I think it just goes back to the old adage, "All things in moderation." Just because something is good doesn't necessarily mean more is better. I plan to try feeding mostly grass this winter with 1/3 - 1/4 alfalfa and see how it goes. I may cut the alfalfa out entirely next spring when our pasture starts coming in. Spring was when I really noticed our goats starting to suffer and I think it's because they were already at a tipping point on molybdenum, and when our grass came in it sent them over the toxicity line. I'm also leaving a copper fortified block out now in addition to our regular loose minerals. When I first put the copper block out (along with a regular trace mineral block) the goats wildly preferred the copper one. It's a 50 lb. cattle block and it's over 1/3 gone already. I'm going to make sure to keep one out over the winter because just as molybdenum binds copper, copper binds molybdenum and so getting extra copper into their systems should help prevent molybdenum toxicity.

[EndlessWinter]

I've suspected a copper deficiency in a few of my Nubian goats and have been doing research.  My research led me to molybdenum toxicity as opposed to a copper deficiency, and I came across your thread during my searches.  I have also seen some symptoms of selenium deficiency in a few of my newborn kids as well as in newborn calves at the cow dairy where I work.  (I'm in SE Idaho).  I now seriously believe the copper deficiency I suspected is due to copper binding to copper antagonists in well water and hay and not getting properly absorbed.  

I'm curious how your experiment went.  Did you feed mostly grass hay this winter?  I feed alfalfa hay during the winter so really interested to hear if a grass mix helped.  I noticed my goats improved in the summer when they were on pasture, but when pasture was under snow and they were back on alfalfa hay I see what looks like copper deficiency again.

Thanks for any info you may have!

[Nanno]

Hello and welcome! The jury is still out on my experiment. Our kiddings will be in April, May, and June this year. We've had one kidding in February and no problems whatsoever. The kids both had nice straight legs when they were born, so no indication of selenium deficiency. Most of my goats look good in terms of copper this winter. I've got two does that I bought last summer who were very, very thin from kidding triplet bucklings as first freshener yearlings. They are the only two that still have poor coats and faded black markings consistent with copper deficiency. I recently bolused them but so far I'm not seeing any improvement. Everyone else looks good, but last year they all looked good until about March/April when my pasture came in. Our area has high molybdenum content in the soil, so when the grass came up it made our mineral problems a lot worse. I'm hoping that feeding grass hay through the winter has kept the molybdenum threshold low enough to allow for them to take on a bit extra when our grass comes in. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one!

[EndlessWinter]

Hello and welcome! The jury is still out on my experiment. Our kiddings will be in April, May, and June this year. We've had one kidding in February and no problems whatsoever. The kids both had nice straight legs when they were born, so no indication of selenium deficiency. Most of my goats look good in terms of copper this winter. I've got two does that I bought last summer who were very, very thin from kidding triplet bucklings as first freshener yearlings. They are the only two that still have poor coats and faded black markings consistent with copper deficiency. I recently bolused them but so far I'm not seeing any improvement. Everyone else looks good, but last year they all looked good until about March/April when my pasture came in. Our area has high molybdenum content in the soil, so when the grass came up it made our mineral problems a lot worse. I'm hoping that feeding grass hay through the winter has kept the molybdenum threshold low enough to allow for them to take on a bit extra when our grass comes in. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one!

Thanks for your reply and good luck with kidding season and pasture.  

[GoldenTreePackGoats]

Thank you for sharing this stuff Nanno.

I get so confused with the copper deficiency stuff. All the vet's in this area tell me don't give copper boluses, and zinc instead. They have told me about entire herds dying from copper toxicity verified through necropsy's after only the standard 2 gram bolus. One of my own goats showed signs of copper toxicity which are similar to deficiency, and by giving him zinc he's made a full turn around, in fact my entire herd looks better. I guess maybe our area has high copper? Even though we get our hay from Eastern WA? It's kinda like our area is dark blue on the selenium map for high content but our hay is grown where there isn't any...