very good well good afternoon it's a
pleasure for me to be here with you I'm
going to talk about minerals as well as
a little bit on vitamins it's here
my contact information is on my cover
slide I've made those slides available
to both Carmen and Melinda I don't
whether they post those anywhere for you
guys but they will be available or you
can contact me and I'll send them to you
email a little bit okay there we go
my credentials I was born in Indiana my
group went to school at Purdue so I'm a
boilermaker by education my dad worked
in the factory but we had a small hobby
farm I had two uncles that had large
livestock row crop operations that I
worked for them while at Purdue
University I was on the livestock
judging team and also was an officer in
block and Vidal so I talked really fast
I went to graduate school at New Mexico
State in Las Cruces I got my PhD in
romanette nutrition I started I was
state 1984 worked there for 33 years as
the Sheep specialist currently I worked
for premier sheep one sheep supplies in
Washington Iowa part-time as they're
basically private extension sheep and
goat specialists a couple of my bigger
developments we initially started the
National sheep Improvement Program at
Iowa State 1987 I have a software Excel
spreadsheet sheet brands that we sell at
Iowa State still and we also
co-developed goat brands ration
balancing software so those
you that are good with Excel want to do
your own rations balance your own
rations those are available through
publications distribution on campus the
objective of our supplementation when we
think about minerals is to provide for
the animals needs we want to do it
low-cost currently with kovat 19 in the
depressed livestock markets it's gonna
be probably an unprofitable year for all
of us
so we need to control feed costs because
that's our single biggest cost of
production you can have mineral cost per
head in your flock of sheep or goats
that might range from 3 dollars up to 42
dollars which I find extremely
outrageous but I had a client call me
with questions from southern Missouri
this spring and he was feeding the
mineral that cost somewhere in the
neighborhood of $60 a bag and they were
eating two ounces a day so there's
mineral cost were 42 dollars a year
that's a bit bit too much number one
thing to remember sheep and goats cannot
read the labels they also will not
follow the labels and we as the
Shepherd's herdsmen have got to read the
labels so we know what's in our mineral
and how much they're supposed to eat
don't we think about the types of
minerals we've got macro which are on
the Left column
calcium phosphorus or the two main ones
that's obviously with bones potassium
magnesium sulfur and then sodium and
chloride macro minerals are required on
a percentage basis so from point 1 to
0.7%
micro minerals are required in very very
small amounts so we've got zinc selenium
cobalt copper manganese
iron iodine and
now we don't know what the requirement
for molybdenum is and sheep or goats the
reason we care about molybdenum is ties
up copper absorption so when we think
about selenium is probably the lowest
mineral requirement at 0.3 parts per
million in Idaho I think you have 1.8
million people so one person in the
state of Idaho would be about point six
parts per million so you got it you got
to realize selenium is very very very
lowly required most of the other
minerals are in iodine is about point
eight to one point five the 
rest of them are in the single digits -
double digits so and zinc's probably the
highest of all the micro minerals so we
think about how do we know what we need
to feed what are the sheep need where
the goats need basically everything I'm
going to talk to you about is based off
of the nutrient requirements of small
ruminants it was published in 2007 I did
not write any of this document but I was
a reviewer on the document and I usually
say the new NRC but since its 13 years
old now I don't think I'll call it new
anymore but basically in the sheep and
goat world we get a new NRC or a
republished NRC with updated
requirements about every 20 years so
we've got a few more years to go to get
a new one and I'm not sure we ever will
get a revised NRC okay the good news is
rat Taylor at the u.s. sheep station put
me onto this article by sprinkle that
was published in 2017 or 18 in the
professional animal scientists it is a
survey of the
general content of Idaho forages and
we're gonna go through those now and
that kind of sets the stage for where we
need to be thinking about
supplementation to sheep and goats so in
terms of calcium if we look at the
average of the forages both summer fall
range irrigated and I think Melinda said
most of the irrigated forages would be
out of the southern part of Idaho I
think that was right
phosphorus under range conditions is
going to be deficient potassium there's
plenty of potassium out there we don't
have to worry about it
magnesium again is going to be short on
range conditions sulfur is actually
short on range conditions and because of
the sulfur content in the irrigation
water irrigated forages are very high in
sulfur which can create problems with
polio can create problems with copper
absorption because of the high sulfur
content and lastly sodium is short on
all of the forages so we've always got
to feed salt to sheep and goats because
there's not enough natural salt
therefore their requirements on the
micro minerals and we look at it zinc is
deficient the requirements for zinc on
sheep and goats are 25 parts per million
for growth 33 for reproduction and sheep
there's been some recent studies out in
beef cattle when they use a eye on our
growth promote that maybe the zinc
levels should be up around 50 parts per
million and there is some in data that
shows first hoof health that we probably
need to be above a hundred parts per
million zinc in that category so we're
always short on zinc if we looked at
some of the data on a national
surveys Inc is the most common micro
mineral that's deficient for livestock
iron our levels are very high to the
point that they can cause problems with
being an antagonist and reducing the
absorption of other minerals manganese
are adequate so we don't need to
supplement them copper range copper
levels around 4 which is way low
irrigated levels at 7 to 6 and 7 and
we're probably okay for sheep except for
the next line which is molybdenum and
you can see that our molybdenum levels
are high and therefore molybdenum and
the high sulfur from the previous slide
we can be having issues especially on
irrigated ground our forages with copper
deficiency even in sheep Cobalt were
probably okay in most situations so
selenium were always short and iodine we
didn't do it I dine in this survey and
you're all going well you know they did
all the others why did they do iodine
because it's expensive and hard to do
the data that I've done in Iowa we are
at about 0.3 or less parts per million
iodine I expect that your similar if not
less and so we're deficient in iodine as
well so we need to think about in a
supplementation for micro minerals zinc
copper selenium iodine this next chart I
think is important to realize do I have
problems and what this chart is showing
that if we start with plenty of minerals
and the sheeps and goats died over time
without supplementing those levels fall
and we have to go a long time maybe
before we see clinical disease and
that's because there is storage of the
micro minerals in the liver in the
kidneys therefore that may not show up
where as immunity can happen very
relatively quickly in terms of a
deficient status and then growth and
fertility are in between so we think
about everybody always makes the joke
six sheets of dead sheep well then one
of the reasons we may have more trouble
with sheep getting ill and goats is if
we don't have appropriate mineral
supplementation so that they have a
working immune system to fight off the
diseases and micro minerals that are
critical for immunity our copper zinc
iodine I think if I remember all right
next thing about minerals is they all
interact with each other so this is a
classic example where copper status is
impacted by the level of molybdenum
sulfur and iron in the animals diets all
three of those minerals negatively
impact the absorption of copper so even
though on the forage test we get seven
parts for Maine copper under on the
irrigated forage because of the high
sulfur the high molybdenum the high iron
levels were probably still maybe
deficient
I did some rations for a lady in British
Columbia last week with her sheep and we
are actually going to feed half goat
mineral half sheep mineral to those
animals
because of copper deficiency now we know
we've all been trained the Sheep can't
handle copper and we shouldn't feed
copper
well maybe we should maybe we shouldn't
it depends on your situation and the
important thing is it's not that sheep
are susceptible to copper sheep are just
really good at absorbing the low levels
of copper that we have in the diets so
we think about it
copper requirements forty seven to ten
parts per million in goats and cattle
it's probably up closer to twenty twenty
five parts per million copper so you can
see obviously for goats we've got a
supplement in that regard
this is some work that I did at Iowa
State we took 50 samples and had them
analyzed for micro mineral content Marc
and Shane or two sheep producers in
northwest Iowa that submitted hay
samples to me that we also analyzed our
copper levels in Iowa are in a nine
seven but there's a huge variation
between the two a samples iron samples
were really high and more importantly
and the reason I put this slide in the
standard deviation on the iron content
of those Hays was 200 over 200
so we have tremendous variation in
higher and it somewhat depends on how
many Gophers you got in the hay field
how nice a job you do raking all that
dirt up in the win row and if you're
running your hey line too low and
getting too much dirt in the windrow
Zink little less variation manganese
almost 50% of the mean molybdenum again
almost 50% of the mean and notice that
on Shane's hay his molybdenum levels are
at seven six point eight Fioretti CLE
that means his coppered in his diet to
prevent copper deficiency and his sheep
should be around 36 to 40 parts per
million copper oh my I don't think I
have enough liability insurance to put
that in most people's rations what I
also found out about that hay was that
was harvested from a roadside ditch that
was about a half a mile long and about
150 yards wide that they had done a lot
of dirt work on brought a bunch of deep
soil in up to the top and screwed it up
and that's why the wooded levels were so
high and the other place I've seen
really high molybdenum levels was in
Ohio on strip reclaimed strip mine
pasture and hay those V levels were
about similar to Shane's and they were
up around six to seven parts per million
selenium levels and I were a little
higher but again great variation iodine
was around point three five very
consistent but a point two one standard
deviation so there's lots of variation
on micro minerals so even though we've
got the state test that we reported on
earlier there's still quite a bit of
variation in that critical times for our
trace minerals so stress increases your
net excretion of copper and zinc so
stressful times and sheep and goats are
weaning transport shipping parasitism
which goats tend to have more trouble
than sheep but all of them do under
poorly managed pastures lactation and
cold stress all can increase the need
for more copper and zinc reproduction
conception rate fetal development liver
storage of fetal liver storage of micro
minerals are impacted and important for
example selenium does cross the placenta
and so sheep and goats should be born
with adequate selenium if we're feeding
the nannies in the duct and use enough
selenium vitamin E does not cross the
placenta the other thing about immune
responses when we vaccinate if we don't
have the appropriate
micro mineral levels we don't get a full
antibody titer response the neutrophils
do not function fully without adequate
micro minerals specifically copper and
zinc and then potentially other immune
systems so we've already talked about a
sick sheeps of dead sheep well one of
the reasons why is if we're not feeding
up minerals especially the micro
minerals then they can't mount that
immune system to fight off the disease
challenge when we think about the
requirements in the NRC it's impacted by
the stage of production
other mineral levels that we've already
talked about the age of the animals and
then the level of production so as an
example we're looking at lactation early
lactation with you lands versus adult
use it takes more
calcium and phosphorus for adult use
that it does you lamps Mitch is common
sense right because the adult used
produce more milk so when they produce
more milk it takes more calcium takes
more phosphorus but we do the math if
we're feed now if alpha a at four and a
half pounds and 2 pounds of barley at
four and a half pounds of hay alfalfa 22
four percent phosphorus gets it
hundredths of a pound of phosphorous two
pounds of barley at 0.4 percent
phosphorus barley wheat oats had more
phosphorus than corn so we're at 0.08
pounds of phosphorus we do the
calculations point oh one eight pounds
of phosphorus times four fifty four
we're getting eight point two pounds of
phosphorus out of that ration so that is
verses eleven gram requirement so our
use our nannies are probably short on
phosphorus during lactation so when we
think about meeting their needs the
number one thing I'm going to remind you
again is just because they eat lots of
mineral does not mean they need lots of
mineral
animals have Zero nutritional wisdom
salt is the reason plus green pie
products and molasses is the reason that
animals eat mineral because most of the
mineral products zinc sulfate zinc oxide
are not very palatable they aren't tasty
so the animals don't regularly eat them
they are eating too for the salt intake
and obviously plain salt from looking at
those first two slides of data on the
forage analysis for Idaho is not enough
we've got a supplement minerals now we
don't have to provide all the mineral
because there is some in the forage
there's some in the diet we just have to
balance it with the mineral source
mineral density for example selenium
I've seen various mineral products trace
mineral products that have from 10 to 90
parts per million selenium
now both of those products can meet the
animals needs lynnium but if it's a
low-end ten parts per million they're
gonna have to eat about two and a half
ounces a day to get there slimming
requirement met whereas at ninety parts
per million they only need to eat a
quarter of an ounce and selenium levels
that we can feed we can supplement are
controlled by FDA and the maximum
allowable level per day is 0.6 nine
milligrams of intake per animal but
here's
example of a sheep mineral this is one
that a producer in Kansas sent me it's
seven percent calcium five percent
phosphorus forty five percent salt one
percent sulfur one percent magnesium
zinc is a 150 parts per million
iodine's 125 Cobalts 150 selenium zat
ten parts for me so again ten parts per
million those sheep would have to eat
two and a half ounces of that per day
now unless it's a third corn or molasses
or soybean meal or grain byproducts
they're not going to eat that much
mineral probably with forty five percent
salt they're going to eat around a half
an ounce because on the 90 on a trace
mineral salt that's ninety percent so it
don't eat about a quarter of an ounce so
if I've got alfalfa hay which is
extremely high in calcium I don't need
the calcium in the ration we talked
about doing the calculations that we
might need phosphorus so we can do some
things to change that mineral around
maybe make it a little better
obviously it's short on zinc because of
the amount of zinc that's in the mid
feed stuffs we're always short we need
to feed more and again because of its
high salt intake they won't eat very
much so when you read the label on your
mineral tag look at how much salts in it
and it'll probably be somewhere between
10 to 50 percent salt unless it's a
trace mineral salt and that'll give you
an idea why along with the other
ingredients they put in that mineral why
the sheep or goats are eating too much
or not enough
think about trace mineral salt it only
contains the micro minerals so it would
have been the second
page of the forage report so zinc iodine
selenium cobalt molybdenum copper and
manganese because it's high salt I need
to 98%
they don't need very much per day so you
get lower intake lower intake reduces
the price because it's mostly salt salt
should you all be able to buy a bag of
plain white salt for around five dollars
or less so our total cost of mineral
supplementation is around 25%
of using a sheet mineral where it's got
the macro and micro minerals in it so if
we use a trace mineral salt we can get
down around $3.00 per year per year per
nanny per year and then water our water
source may also provide minerals some
people have a lot of sulfur in their
water a lot of hard water kit situation
with lots of calcium can screw up
calcium phosphorus ratios etc that cause
problems of calculi and some of those
things alright so here's the
advertisement promotion for premier one
of the things that premier sheep supply
bought it out Pipestone vet supply a cup
about three years ago we got a bunch of
nutritional products and that's why I
premier hired me on to reformulate these
train their staff make sure they were
appropriate so we have both the goat
trace mineral premix as well as a sheep
trace mineral premix these are five
pound bags you mix them with 50 pounds
of plain salt and basically then that's
going to cost you around $18 for that 55
pounds or last so feet about 10 head of
animals
year we also sell a one-pound atne
premix pack that you can add in that if
you think you need a D&E but we'll talk
about vitamins later mineral
availability lots of feed companies will
try to imply that their mineral is
better because of the sources they use
to make the mineral generally if we
think about availability in terms of how
much of that that we feed the animal is
absorbed oxides are like zinc oxide also
the same stuff that's in your sunscreen
if I remember right has a relatively low
absorption and the animals may absorb
twenty to forty percent of it sulfates
are in moderate absorption forty to
sixty percent and key Lakes like ciolino
yeast or Zen probe those type of
minerals that are chelated to an amino
acid have higher absorb abilities maybe
50 to 70% so in in some research trials
we have gotten the response to chelated
minerals now my concern is did we get
the response because we increased the
total available mineral because of
higher absorption which to me indicates
that the NRC's are wrong we have a
higher requirement right than we thought
or is it really it's a better form of
zinc that our selenium or whatever that
doesn't a better job we don't have a lot
of information on that in the sheep and
goat world so I wouldn't necessarily
pay the extra cost of the Keeling's and
I thought it was interesting I was
looking at a mineral the other day for
somebody and it contained all the
chelated minerals but it also contained
all the cheap minerals as well to make
the mineral cheaper and they were
talking about how it was better because
it had the chelated minerals what should
you do number one you should test your
forages test your heggs know where
you're at not only just for minerals but
also protein and energy because that's
the big things we need to balance for
the research data that I showed you from
Iowa State we had those analyzed at
Michigan State University micro minerals
of minerals will cost you about $60 a
mineral we made them a deal because they
were doing six on 50 samples six
different micro minerals and we got them
done for $150 a piece second part now we
know what our mineral it levels are of
our forages we did the mineral tests
secondly is how much mineral do the
animals eat so I would put out a weekly
supply for the group and see where that
last three days see if it lasts six days
see if there's a lot left after a week
because the feed companies when they did
their mineral formulations baby spin-off
of X intake so we it really shouldn't
say the minerals bad because if they're
not eating it it's not the mineral is
bad it's just that she and goats aren't
eating enough to balance their needs
because they're not following the label
directed
in three and three times what they're
spudding then that means there's too
much flavor enhancer goodies molasses
grain byproducts etc put in there and
they got the summer intake too high when
they tend to overeat I tend to dilute it
back out with salt now if your sheep and
goats have all the hay they can eat you
give them a little grain every day their
condition score three and a half to four
so they are never hungry their mineral
intake is probably going to be
relatively low if you really control dry
matter intake if they need three pounds
of hay to meet their energy needs and
that's all you give them they eat that
in an hour they have a gun thing else to
do the rest of the day so they may eat
more mineral just out the border one of
the questions that came in ahead of
today's webinar was should I use blocks
or should I use loose salt our loose
mineral the old Shepherds would say
never to use blocks because it tends to
cause problems with them losing their
teeth now I don't know whether that's
true or not but I do know that blocks
it's harder for them to consume the
amount they need they may start
relatively soft so that they can consume
them pretty well but after they're out
in their weather a little bit they get
hard and nothing eats them so it's a lot
easier to put out a weak supply with
loose mineral I tend to think we should
use loose mineral but I don't care which
way you go
again if they're supposed to announce a
piece and you got 30 years 30 goats
that's almost two pounds a day so they
need 14 to 15 pounds for the week
measure that out as produced read the
mineral tag know how much selenium is in
there
monitor their intake I like to put the
mineral in the TMR or in the grain mix
and force-feed it I think you will have
way less animal to animal day-to-day
mineral intake variation when we think
about mineral it is needed year-round we
should not say well we don't need you
know I'm not breeding them until
September October I mean put them in or
out there until August so all some right
I'm just feeling salt I don't think
they're gonna catch out I don't want to
take the risk it's only three to five
dollars maybe ten a year to put the
mineral out there feed them as you think
about for example in zinc zinc is
involved with hoof health hoof wall hoof
integrity if you smash your finger and
you got that nice little black and blue
fingernail how many months does it take
for that to grow all the way out through
a couple three months well as you think
about zinc going into that hoof and that
tissue growing it probably takes three
to six months of growth to get that
whole hoof tissue to where it's got the
right level of zinc in there for that
collagen for that hoof strength
so if you take them off during the
summer because they're not doing
anything or early fall because they're
not breeding yet then you got that time
period where you're short on zinc and
then we wonder why we have so many four
hoof problems and sheep and go this is
all changed right now and on distillers
the ethanol industry is in a crisis
they're all shutting down because low
oil prices low gas prices so distillers
grains aren't available but distillers
is high in sulfur and that high sulfur
as well as heavy metals can tie up other
minerals specifically selenium can be
tied up so we've seen some increases in
white muscle disease on lambs when we
feed a lot of sulfur to the lactating
are a lot of diet distillers to like
okay we're going to touch on copper
toxicity real quick again back to sheep
it's that they're really efficient in
absorbing the copper and Suffolk's are
the best texels
are poor so they may need more copper
than a Suffolk and other breeds I don't
know about but if I'm trying to prevent
copper poisoning in Iowa for sure I
don't ever feed any additional copper I
feed some molybdenum and if you look on
that label of the premier trace mineral
salts pack we put molybdenum in there
and it does have just a touch of copper
because the products we use to make the
micro minerals have some contamination
and have just a bit of copper in it
amounts to adding about a hundredth of
apart from me into the total rash so our
guidelines for sheep on and in copper
poisoning is we want that copper to
mulignan ratio between 6 to 1 up to 10
to
so we get below 61 that means we have
too much molybdenum we make it into
copper deficiencies the lady in British
Columbia her ratio was two-to-one she
had really high molybdenum zat two and a
half and her copper levels were down
around five the other extreme when were
fighting copper poisoning competent
issues 10 to 1 as the max and so that's
a base diet in many cases and usually at
least in Iowa when we get copper
poisoning problems it's mostly a
screw-up at the mill or they didn't get
the feed delivery truck cleaned out good
enough and there was some leftover pig
feed in the tank and on swine we feed
250 parts of remaining copper because it
promotes growth
only 20 times above what we want to feed
a sheep there 25 so it doesn't take much
pig feed to get into a problem we think
about vitamins in our mineral sources I
think they tend to be deactivated over
time I think there's a half-life of
about 30 days so I don't count on
vitamins in my minerals to do that for
me I'd put them in either the grain or I
would put them in if I mixed up that
trace mineral pack I'd put them in and
I'd only mix up maybe a 30-day supply in
many minerals on the labels say there's
10 Parts I used for debt pound of
mineral for use in late gestation and
lactation I want them to get a hundred I
use minimum per day so that means they'd
have to eat ten pounds of mineral
we can't afford that so using the
mineral source that's generally worked
very well to get her vitamins up in
reality the only vitamin I'm really
concerned about is vitamin E and less
you've had your sheep and dry lot
year-round but if they're grazing on
green grass the generally they can store
enough vitamin A and liver to last six
months vitamin D as long as the Sun
comes out couple days a week and they're
not locked indoors they can make their
own vitamin D so vitamin E is really the
critical feed our vit critical vitamin
in terms of sheep and goat nutrition
here's a research project I did probably
in the early 90s these years were poly
pay based lamin in February we gave them
weekly shot our weekly shots of vitally
three cc's every week those sheep hated
to going down through the chute after
about the second week because they knew
they were gonna get stuck with a syringe
so when prior to treating to use their
serum levels of e were one point two
seven one point two six pre-landing
after basically a month of
supplementation the vitamin e levels it
kicked up in both groups but we got
about a 25% increase in serum E levels
post lambing again this little bigger
level by mid lactation because they
weren't getting any more e their a
levels had dropped and notice milky
levels at day 3 post lambing if we
supplemented the you in late gestation
her milk had 50% more vitamin E as we
talked about earlier II does not
transfer the placenta now many of us
premier sells baby lamb strength vinyl
vinyl E we sell lots of products to
treat and give lambs vitamin E I would
rather feed it to the use because I
don't like giving shots the two columns
on the far right are sheep that got e
both in gestation and lactation which is
the first column or just in lactation
and you'll notice that their serum
levels stayed high whereas the use that
did not get supplementation went down
now these use were on an excellent
reaction of really high quality small
square bales of alfalfa hay second
cutting and shelled corn so the hay was
pretty high in vitamin E content
on the lambs when we looked at the lambs
out of these use day three postpartum
serum II levels were the same notice
though by day twenty-eight use that
weren't getting supplemented any longer
their lambs were extremely low in serum
II levels the vet school would have
indicated at Iowa State that those are
levels that would be considered
deficient whereas if the use were still
getting II we're still running through
the chute once a week giving them the
shots though their lambs had high levels
of e still and maintained that level so
by 28 days you know after that probably
don't need to give EE to the use or
supplement either to use because the
Lambs are eat enough Creek feed that it
doesn't matter or the fourth inning kids
are but lambing season kidding season
lasts more than a day so we've got lambs
in all different stages of lactation so
we just give them supplemental II and
it's relative for best manage your
practices with e I want to put 100 I use
of e in the diet late gestation and
lactation creep feed I'd like to have at
least sixty thousand I use per ton up to
a hundred thousand again don't count on
a out of the mineral because it's too
low and lastly grass green forage has
really high levels of E so we don't need
to supplement a leg gestation we're back
to stress especially for us in the
winter lamb we share those use ahead of
lambing we've got cold stress on use
we've got milk fever from inadequate
calcium or too much of the other
minerals I think as we have bred these
sheep to have higher milk production
more multiples we're seeing more
problems with calcium in late gestation
lactation and milk fevers part of that
is we've tend to put a lot of potassium
on alfalfa hay that's growing up the
cation in an unbalanced just like we do
in dairy cows and so we need to see a
nutritionist to get that fixed one of
the things we can do is feed the moaning
chloride late gestation though sheep
users stressed right so they've got
reduced immunity more health issues
mastitis respiratory yeutter infections
the other thing is that as animals are
sick they have to reallocate energy to
fight the disease the bug and they can't
use it for production so that it can't
grow as fast they don't milk as much so
we want to try to make sure we get
plenty of minerals in there if you've
got a small flock of animals for example
your free choice of mineral with a half
an ounce of intake you want to get a DNA
into them in that 50 pound I would use
the use need about 3,500 I use of a a
day and 150 to 300 of e whoops oh I left
the slide somewhere
though I would mix one pound in there to
get my with 50 pounds of mineral to get
to 80 Annie intake up there you know if
you sample forages we can do that if
you're losing Lambs one of the orchids
stillbirths is probably potentially a an
iodine deficiency you know before the
webinar got started we're having it was
mentioned that we're seeing a lot of
quarters and and kids and lambs I think
goats have a higher iodine requirement
one of the things we can do is harvest
some kidneys and livers from either
animals we take to the locker because
that is the best sample to analyze for
whether or not this what the status is
on mineral of the diet blood samples are
not nearly as accurate again reading the
tags monitor intake plain salt is never
enough even though it's cheap it's not
enough and we can't expect sheep and
goats to perform if we don't meet their
mineral needs I know this is boring
stuff it takes lots of math so you can
either do it by buying the brand
software you can consult a nutritionist
you can call up your local extension
specialist and they can help you go
through whether or not we're short on
minerals and how to supplement by a good
food scale you can't use a spring scale
out in the barn you've got to be able to
measure to the nearest tenth of an ounce
if not smaller amounts so you can do the
right mixing and know how much is out
there that you're going to feed and with
that
I am and we'll be glad to take questions
okay so the first question is from the
beginning of the presentation you
mentioned the spreadsheet and they could
how do you find it on the website or
what website do you find it at it is on
the Iowa State University website okay
it is under extension publications or
the extension web web store so if you go
to extension and then it will have
publications store or something like
that the next one it says is there a
zinc supplement that can be easily added
to loose minerals yes if you need it and
I would use zinc sulfate okay but how
much you got to do the math you can't
just you just can't go throw some in
there because one of the other questions
that was a pad of the today can you get
too much yes
zinc is toxic at 500 parts per million
copper and sheep can be toxic at 10
parts per million selenium can be toxic
at two parts per million so we can feed
too much we should look at the label and
see if we're short because it might be
low levels of zinc in the mineral but
they're eating two ounces so they're
getting lots of zinc it could be there's
lots of zinc in the mineral but they
don't eat any of it so they're not
getting any mint
anything it's a tube phase question on
is there enough okay but you're right
zinc's the number one thing to worry
about
okay so here's the question it says my
goat once had an allergic reaction to
slim selenium do I have to continue
giving him selenium shots like the rest
of the goats or should they avoid giving
the shot okay this is my pet peeve if
you have to give your animal selenium
shots if you have to give your babies
baby lamb strength or kids baby lamb
strength if you've got a supplement
selenium that way what does that say
about our diet this is a rhetorical
question in Carmen you can answer what's
that say about the diet Carmen that it
is lacking selenium okay or there's
something tying up selenium absorption
let's fix the diet because that selenium
shots not gonna last the animal very
long right they need to get selenium
every day I've never heard of got
animals being allergic to selenium so
you'll have to call them in we have to
talk that one through to know what to do
there okay one second see there was okay
oh no I have to find it
so this was a question on they were
wondering about supplementing hay with
barley and whether it needs to be
crushed or if you can have it as a whole
seed when supplementing I would feed it
home
but I always have bucks
okay let's say we're going to add our
mineral in with the bargain then we need
to process the barley because we got to
get a smaller particle size I might add
one to two percent vegetable oil to that
grain mix to help hold the mineral in
the mix and keep it mixed up correctly
and distributed it correctly okay so if
you're just feeding barley you can feed
it whole or corn for that matter okay um
thank you so the next question it's kind
of a comment they just mesh and that
producer should purchase minerals that
are formulated for their state and
county and you know working with local
consultants that would know their area
the best so if someone was per se having
an issue and they wanted to consult what
type of information would they need to
collect before they you know contacted
someone like you to consult with okay I
would do a forage analysis for minerals
have some idea of what the current
mineral is relative to what's on the
label and how much the animals are
eating how would they measure their
intake you know how many animals are in
the group right yeah you read the label
on the mineral and it says they're
supposed to eat a half an ounce of day
you do that math so we got 50 then there
should they should eat 25 ounces a day
if they're supposed to eat a half an
ounce a piece times a week that's a
hundred and
75 ounces which is 11 pounds okay so you
put out 11 pounds on Saturday morning
and you check during the week and see
how long it lasts
okay sounds good
this question says how much selenium
needed per you I think you might have
covered that that the legal level that
we can feed or provide to au per day or
a nanny per day as 0.69 milligram okay
and I calculated that out that's like
point zero zero zero zero zero seven
pounds it is a very small amount okay so
they say we have well water have you
noticed any patterns involving minerals
and well water well obviously well water
can be hard which gets you more calcium
some wells are bad in terms of sulfur
smell small rotten egg smell so they may
be high in sulfur a pattern necessarily
I don't know of one trying to figure out
okay what about a combination of organic
and inorganic zinc okay so we're looking
at that would be Zen bro and then zinc
sulfate zinc oxide obviously the organic
will improve absorption so theoretically
you should have to feed the less of it
to get the same level of zinc intake
okay um let me see oh and then how much
of those so this is going back to the
selenium question does the requirement
change before and after gestation their
requirement will change a little bit but
I try to always maximize the selenium
intake global I try to feed point six
nine point six zero point six five
milligrams every day okay trying to make
sure I got them all I think that's it we
just had some other questions just about
mixing how would you mix the salt with
the trace mineral packs that you
mentioned okay there's a video on the
premiere site that shows me doing it we
did it two different ways you can just
use a piece of plywood dump the salt out
on the plywood sprinkle a pack in there
and use this shovel and just mix it up
now you can also use a cement mixer put
it in there mix it up get it mixed it
mixes pretty pretty easily so it's not
that it's not that to get it mixed up
you
