Diamond K Goats

One of the most important things you can give your goat is minerals. Goats need to have access to minerals free-choice at all times. One of the most inportant minerals a goat needs is copper.  Goats that are low in copper will be wormy all the time, their coat will be rough and may change colors ( from black to red or brown), they may lose their hair in spots, lose weight and die if not treated. Minerals are in the soil and come up through the roots of grass and weeds. If your soil is low, then your goats will be low.  We keep cattle & goat pasture minerals out all the time. The goats also get Dumore mineral block from Tractor Supply and goat mineral-protein tubs from Sweet-lix.** we are now feeding Sweet-lix Meatmaker 16:8 loose mineral.** We DO NOT put fertilizer on our pastures because it changes the minerals in the soil. We also feed goat feed that is high in copper. Don't feed horse feed or an all-stock feed because the minerals are not the amounts that goats need.  When the goats are wormed, if anybody has pale eyelid color, we give them a dose of Mineral Max. (worms hate copper) If you have well water, you might want to have it checked to see what minerals are in it. Too many minerals can be just as bad as not enough. I speak from experince when I talk about minerals. Three years ago, we had a copper defencincy problem here. After the hurricane, we lost about 1000 pine trees.  The trees had to be removed, some were burned, stumps removed.  Then the land was graded and re-seeded.  There never was a copper problem before the hurricane, but boy did we pay for it afterwards. We lost eight goats to copper defencincy.