Sheep have special supplemental mineral needs – and nutrition companies are at the ready to help.
The issue is not just a composition of the supplements, but how available the minerals are to be taken up by the animal. St. Joseph, Mo.,-based Biozyme, for instance, offers Vitaferm, which boasts “highly available sources of trace minerals and extra Vitamin E to support maximum reproduction and health.”
The loose product, which can be fed free choice or blended into a grain product, lists 10 minerals and three vitamins; the company says it meets or exceeds the National Research Council requirements for sheep.
Loose minerals are best, according to Dr. David Fernandez, University of Arkansas Extension livestock specialist based in Pine Bluff.
“A lot of people like the block because it’s convenient and easy to use; it doesn’t have too much of a problem with being rained on,” he told Ozarls Farm & Neighbor. “But they don’t get as much of the mineral, and often don’t get enough mineral, if it’s a block. If you think about it, it’s like licking a brick; after a while your tongue is going to get tired and you’re just going to stop, whereas with loose mineral they can get as much as they need, and there’s salt mixed in there to help keep them from overconsuming.”
But sheep don’t need much copper, and that’s why it’s dangerous to feed a supplement to sheep that’s designed for other animals. The Biozyme product doesn’t even list copper as an ingredient.
In a study, researchers at the University of Missouri Department of Food Animal Medicine and Surgery said it’s thought sheep are predisposed to chronic copper poisoning because they don’t eliminate the mineral very quickly in their bile or urine, and because of the way proteins that take up zinc and copper are distributed in their livers. As a result, they say, there’s a “relatively small difference between the copper concentrations reported to be adequate for sheep rations, and those dietary copper concentrations considered to be potentially toxic.”
Sometimes sheep can be provided a bolus made from copper oxide wire particles (COWP).
”It’s a slower release, and it’s not absorbed terribly well,” Fernandez said. “And it can also potentially help them a little bit with parasites….Goats, on the other hand, tend to need a little bit more copper, and the requirements for goats are not well worked out yet. There are new requirements that have been published by the National Research Council, but they’re based a lot on metabolics, body size and on other species, and not the kind of ‘feed them and we’ll see what happens if we don’t give them enough’-type trial that we used to do with cattle.”
Goats in Arkansas would likely need a copper supplement, because Arkansas forages tend to be deficient in that mineral. They’re also often short of selenium, which works with Vitamin E to repair cell damage in the body. But there are some areas of Arkansas where forages are high in both copper and selenium, and selenium can also be toxic at high doses, so Fernandez advised caution to avoid overfeeding.
And, he added, trust the supplement formulators. “The thing about minerals is they often have interaction,” he said. “Magnesium and calcium interfere with each other; copper, iron, manganese and cobalt all interact. It’s very difficult for doctoral-level nutritionists to get right, so for you to try to do it is probably not your best bet. Your best bet there is to rely on the feed companies to put together a good, solid mix.”
