Our soil is deficient in selennium & have heard we should be supplementing our goat ration with it. Our does will freshen in early April & we haven't given them any yet. Can anyone help as to the amount & how often. Thanks, Molly & Gretchen will aprreciate it. Brenda

-- Brenda Reise (d+breise@northcom.net), February 29, 2000

Answers

Brenda, if your soil is truly short of selenium, you may have to supplement. However, selenium is a poison. Get it wrong, you get dead goats. Grains contain selenium, and if you are buying them from an elevator or feed store that collects grains from a wide area or imports them from outside your area, the selenium may be present in sufficent quantities. This one you need to have answered locally. Contact your vet, the county extension agent, someone who is a high quality breeder/raiser of livestock (wouldn't have to be goats) even local 4H and FFA folks. They will know or be able to put you incontact with people who know just how much selenium is in your soil, and how much supplementation (if any) you should do. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), February 29, 2000.

Most people give a shot before kidding ,your vet should have this for.

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), March 01, 2000.

We have been feeding selenium in our feed for twenty years. Our southeastern Ohio soil is notoriously deficient in selenium. Almost all the farmers give their calves selenium shots because of "white muscle" (caused by lack of selenium.)

When the mill makes our feed, they mix it in at the rate of 7 pounds in a three and a half ton batch. We feed this grain to the cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys,pigs, and chickens.

The wonderful side effect of all these years of feeding selenium in the feed, is that we haul the manure back out onto our hay fields and today, they test RICH in selenium. It is nice to know that you can put it back. We also add feeding grade limestone and magnesium and our fields test rich in calcium and magnesium in a notoriously deficient area.

Years of spreading the manure that carries the selenium, calcium and magnesium have paid off in us seeing the day in the future, that we might not have to feed it at all.

Scientists are just beginning to understand the importance of selenium and magnesium in the human diet.

We spread this same manure on our gardens, and enjoy knowing that our vegatables are rich in these minerals also.

-- homestead2 (homestead@monroecty.net), March 01, 2000.

We live in central Ohio, also Se deficient, and give BOSe IM at 1cc/40# of weight. You can get BOSe from your vet. We give it 14 days prior to kidding to not only aid in the kidding process, but prevent against white muscle disease. It also seems to help the ladies with weak pasterns struggling through pregnancy.

-- Jim Roberts (jroberts1@cas.org), March 01, 2000.

You need to find out from other local goat breeders or your vet about the deficiency situation in your area. If you are deficient and do not give selinium then you are prone to experience difficulties. Our feed has selinium already in the mix. We also give a BO-SE to the kids, 1/2 cc when they hit the ground. Bernice

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), March 01, 2000.

Here is a link that is good to read, it also has a map of areas deficient in Selenium in the USA. Hope this hyper link works, if not just cut and paste the http:// part inside the " ".

selenium facts

-- Jim Roberts (jroberts1@cas.org), March 02, 2000.