I got sort of heckled off the Shedders list for bringing up mineral imbalances as causes for certain health problems. I got scoffed at because I might be reading Pat Coleby's books on natural animal care.
Well, I do read Pat Coleby and she was the one who alerted me to the lack of copper in the diet as a cause for lack of resistance to a lot of diseases, including Johne's and parasites. My flock was suffering from a lot of low grade health issues. Some of those issues got pretty serious. The vets just kept saying worm 'em. Treat 'em for cocci. I dunno. These are lousy sheep. They're always dying. THREE vets couldn't make my sheep well. With a lot of trepidation, I mixed up Coleby's mineral lick which is blue with copper sulfate, but which has other minerals that buffer the copper. The sheep broke out in a war over the mix. When each in turn had gotten a tiny amount they pretty well ignored it, though they would go to it occasionally, dab their tongues in it, then go away. At this point, I went through a lot of agony, thinking I had poisoned my flock. But instead, I saw an abrupt end to virtually ALL the problems I was having. One lamb I was calling Rat Boy because he was so scruffy, is growing up into a gorgeous wether. And the really wierd thing is looking at fecal samples under the microscope. At a time when the ewes should be shedding eggs like crazy, there is hardly one. But what I have seen, is a nematode-like thing with one end blown out. Several of them. Maybe they get parasites, but their boosted immune system kills them??? Copper boosts the immune system and Coleby cites instances where farmers have bought Johne's bulls, put them on copper sufficient pastures and never had another symptom. It's all anecdotal, certainly not scientific. But we are CONSTANTLY being told not to give copper to the sheep without regard for what's actually in their feed. I analyzed all our feed and found out that the hay (including alfalfa pellets) is all sub-par for sheep in copper. But the BIG problem is that there is too much molybdenum. The ratio should be 6-10 parts copper to 1 part moly, and we were typically getting 2 parts copper to 1 part moly, when the copper wasn't adequate to begin with. In one alfalfa pellet sample we got 2X the TOXIC level of iron. There is too much potassium, which ties up the magnesium, which is probably why grass tetany is such a problem. It's not a lack of magnesium, which is adequate, it's way too much potassium. On all the hay samples the iron was way too high. But interestingly, our new crop of hay is off land that has not been chemically farmed in many years. A lot of the values are still off, but the iron content of the forage is 1/4 of the chemically farmed hay, just .04 above the upper limit for sheep. The hay came from a field about a mile away from the high-iron field that has been chemically farmed. Good for my sheep, bad for the hay field - All the nutrition from that field left that field and came to mine, where it will be run through the sheep and horses, and then enhanced, as compost, will go to nourish MY pasture, MY sheep all over again. That field will never be replenished and will eventually give out because all the nutrients are being transported off of it, never to return. I think that all this "sudden" susceptibility of animals to immune deficiency diseases like Johne's is a direct result of the degraded soils and the garbage the animals get fed in the feed lots. Ground chicken feathers? From chickens raised in factories? We're all blaming the animals and ourselves for selecting for one trait while disregarding another. When are we going to start looking at the soil??? Even humans are falling to new diseases every day. You can't go a day reading the newspaper without some new disease being reported. Does it have something to do with growing up at McDonald's, eating cardboard pizza and TV dinners? Tomatoes that ship rather than nourish? You can get three times the hay off a field that's been chemically fertilized, but that means its stripping three times the available minerals out of the ground at the same time - minerals that aren't being replaced by triple-16. You've got lignin and cellulose and artificially created protein - and all the heavy metals and crap that came with the fertilizer. The vital natural elements that create health are going, going, gone. I think our blackbellies have a HEAP of resistance to all sorts of stuff. But they are a product of the earth and the grass, just like we are. ALL our health starts right under our feet. We ARE responsible for bringing robust animals into the world. But all the genetic health on the planet, rolled into one animal, is a waste if the animal doesn't have one basic element to survive. Interestingly, it takes LESS selenium to kill a sheep than it does copper. The requirement for selenium is less than 2 parts per million. Copper is 8-12 parts per million. But selenium deficiency is so widely accepted that those of us in selenium deficient areas supplement automatically. Selenium needs sulphur to be assimilated. I supplement with selenium and give bo-se shots, which sometimes doesn't seem to be enough. Guess what??? My HAY and my SOIL are sulphur deficient! Try to find sulphur on your trace mineral tag. So along with loose sheep mineral, kelp meal and Coleby mix, the sheep have a sulphur block which they use! We need to start testing our forages and concentrates and start putting our money into fixing those problems first, THEN worry about the latest drugs, and why our sheep keep dying of diseases that weren't even heard of 200 years ago - before the advent of modern agriculture. Off the soapbox, Barb _______________________________________________ This message is from the blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
