Zinc deficiency

shaaronboers

New Member
HI,
Can anyone tell me if they have fed zinc sulphate powder and if so at what rates and with any success.
The reason I ask is that my commercial herd of GOATS are testing as low in zinc but high in copper, cobalt and selenium.
I am therefore trying to find a way to increase the zinc without increasing the copper, cobalt and selenium which rules out pretty much all teh boluses and drenches.
I have added zinc rich rockie blocks but was hoping for a more direct root of getting the zinc inside them - either drench or by dosing their water troughs.
Lots of articles are showing that it can be fed but no rates to feed at and all the british sellers i find are listing it only as foot dip etc not for feeding.
Any thoughts anyone has would be gratefully received :)
 

andybk

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Mendips Somerset
i wouldnt feed it , i should think it would be toxic if you get it wrong (it is a disinfectant ) and a lot of zinc sulphate will have wetters added to help dissolve quicker , high zinc sheep buckets (feet and fertility ) could be option from MVF , otherwise a call to vet for ideas
 

shaaronboers

New Member
Thanks for your help.
I have added zinc rich rockie licks and we get bucket made special for our goats, next batch I will get them to add more zinc, only I just recived 3 months supply just before the vets decided zinc might be the problem, so i was trying to give a bit of an instant fix.

I actually sourced a human liquid suppliment which i have been giveing to the worse cases and can see it starting to work but of course human version is flipping expensive and not an option for the whole herd.

We will go on mudlding through with the zinc blocks ( which some are using and others not) until i can get a new batch made up.

Unless anyone else has an idea!

Ps, what are "wetters"
 

shaaronboers

New Member
Thanks eveyone thank Jim I didnt think there was much left on the web about goats and zinc I hadn't already read but i hadn't seen the hoegger farmyard one.

The copper levels are not excessivly high, just at the top end of correct, which is why i dont want to add more with a zinc bolus which also contains copper and selenium.
Selenium is also at the top end of correct and selenium overdose kills goats for fun (copper doesn't).
We do give a high copper mineral to them because they are prone to copper deficiency which is why they are in the correct range for that. If we drop the copper too much they end up deficient within a year.

We just need to work out the balance to ensure they get enough copper without inhibiting the Zinc whilst also upping the zinc.

Mineral balances are just so hard to keep right because everything interacts so much with each other in loads of ways still unknown.

Will also check out the calcium levels in the feed as i hadnt checked that out already. - but we are quite extensivly run and they don't get a huge amount of hard feed.

got the vets out this afternoon to get a second set of bloods for mineral analysis as the labs mucked up the ones they took last week. Try to find out if what we have been doing over the last few months has made any improvements from the bloods taken then.
 
Wetters literally make liquids less sticky so they get absorbed more easily - breaks/reduces surface tension.. Things like washing up liquid actually make water "wetter" for eg so if you have very dry soil and put a dash of wash liquid in the watering can the water will get absorbed by the soil rather than sitting on the top.
 

JD-Kid

Member
i'd have to put my hat on for a while but are they getting eneff zinc or useing too much there is a diffrence
know here copper caps can lower zinc in liver zinc will lower copper so a see saw between them

how were the tests taken ?? bloods or livers just read they were bloods ... you may need to dig deeper to see true levels
 

shaaronboers

New Member
vets try their best but really minerals are hard at the best of times and no one fully understands goats needs either.

I'm starting to understand the links between copper and zinc and see that it will be a case of "seesaw" as you say.

It struck me yesterday that, last year we changed our feed because we had a few cases of urinary calculi so changed to one with added ammonium chloride.

Is it just a coincidence that within a year of that change we suddenly start getting problems? - maybe not .

I plan on ringing the feed company today to get full analysis of both the feeds. Maybe i can work out if that could be at least part of the problem - which, if it is, would be nice because a quick fix would be to go back to the old feed.
 

Clinwil

Member
Location
Herefordshire
to counter a zinc deficiency the use of chelated zinc will reduce the problem as I would guess the zinc is probably being "locked-up" and this will provide much higher levels of zinc to the animal and less waste. If you are using a copper mineral check if it has chelated zinc? as that would be the best way of feeding zinc. To get the full picture I would look at forage analysis this will tell you what antagonists are "locking-up" the elements and give you a true status on copper.
 

shaaronboers

New Member
UPDATE
Ok so I'm making progress and I thought I ought put my findings on here in case it helps anyone else.
Firstly thank you to everyone who has replied and yes I have used your comments in my further research.

The recomendations are that you should not feed zinc sulphate although there are guidelines on how much to use if you do decide to do it - i was quoted (second hand, but via a nutrionist and our vets) - Successful treatment of deficiencies has been achieved with 250 mg zinc sulphate heptahydrate by mouth daily for 4 weeks (Nelson, JAVMA, 1984).
HOWEVER -
zinc sulphate causes stomach distress and can cause scouring - which doesn't help as one of my main symptoms was scours.

However there are various zinc methionine based products and various things which claim to have chelated zinc in them which are much safer to use.

The most promising product I have found is Brinicombe's selcount - this is zinc and selenium pellets which are suspended in the drinking trough. Designed for cows on their way out of the parlour to help dairy cows. They helped me work out how much I needed for my goats.
Brinicomes also offer a high zinc mollesed tub lick .
As yet, I have only just received those 2 products so can't say how well they are working.

I also find that Wynnstay offer a salty zinc bucket - although I haven't yet bought any of those.

For the last 3 weeks though I have been using Sainsburys' human vitamin c with added zinc effervescent tables in the drinking water. I concluded that if it was ok for humans it couldn't do any harm in the goats. I was a little cautious and have been using about 15 or 20 daily tablets each day between about 140 animals (the worst ones having most) and I decided that was well within the human guidelines. In those 3 weeks I have seen significant improvement in coat condition and skin condition and in the main group, that were never quite as sick, a complete halt to the scouring. (I guess other supermarkets will make similar products).

I have been cautious not to get too high with the dosing - however yesterday the APHA vet finally arrived. His conclusion was that, yes we clearly do have Zinc deficiency as the main cause of the problems with the "other stuff", including worm issues, as symptoms not causes of the problem. Whilst he is still working on the reason for the deficiency (with forage analysis etc as recomended by some of you) he did say he was quite happy for me to go on using the effervescing tables and in fact to increase their use as much as I wanted to.

His view was that, as the goats were clerly significantly deficient, there was no reason not to give large amounts of suitable zinc. His view - once they started to get up to the levels they actually needed, any excess would be excreted in the form of urine and faeces - and returned to the ground - which is in any case likley to be also in deficit! (awaiting soil analysis).

Several people I have contacted have made coments about the unlikelyness of it being zinc deficiency as "that is not really seen in the field" however when I talk to various farmers lots are already supplimenting with zinc, also purely the fact that zinc products are avaialble show that, without those, some farms WOULD have deficiency.
Part of the problem that causes the view - zinc deficency doesn't happen - is, it would happen if it wasn't being dealt with by individual farmers - just none of the vets know because no one ever thought to tell them because it isn't an issue to those farms.

Remember - I am a first generation farmer with no historical knowledge to fall back on.

One youngster I talked to even said "no we dont get that because we give them supplements" - basically he didn't even recognise why he did that, he just did.

With luck and the help of a higher level vet plus various nutriotinists who have offered to help we are going to get the long term balance in our minerals supplied but in the short term to get back on track the answer is "LOTS of zinc"

Many thanks to everyone.
 

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