Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Update 2: Janice and Copper

Back in May we decided to start giving Janice daily liquid copper that Hubby mixed up (he's a chemist). We could not get rid of her bald nose and knew the bald nose was due to a copper deficiency.

Here is a link to the first post and a link to the second post about Janice and her bald nose.

First photo taken back in May of Janice and her bald nose and head.

This photo was taken yesterday!
Her nose started filling in with hair within 4 weeks. By 8 weeks her nose was almost 'normal'! And by about 10 weeks she had all the hair grown back on her nose. Her milk production was back up to between 4 lbs and 6 lbs per milking (1/2 gallon to 1/2 gallon + 1 quart), which is where her 6* says she should be.

We have been dosing all the milk goats with copper. Their coats are all shiny now. A Saanen goat that's glossy looks really nice! I wish I could capture the glossy coats in a photo!

For a 7 year old doe, Janice looked great at the shows, taking Second Place in one Older Doe class. The Judge was really surprised at how good this old girl looked. We are really happy that she is out playing with the younger does, looking and acting much younger than she really is.

Yay Janice!

2 comments:

Tonia said...

Adding the copper has just amazed me!! I have one that I still havent gotten enough into her but she is looking better! They say light colored goats dont need as much but I think maybe they just dont show the signs like a dark colored goat..
I use the Copasure and really really like it since ihave to only dose every couple of months.
COngrats on her looking so well!

TJ said...

Tonia, Thanks!

We tried the Copasure on Janice, too. We bolused her once a month for about 3 months with the dosages found on Saanendoah.... the first photo shows what she looked like after the 3 boluses. For some reason Janice just doesn't absorb the Copasure properly.

I know this wouldn't work in a large herd. I can't imagine dosing 30 individual goats every day! But for the 4 we are milking right now, it works really well.