Copper for the Goats

So we noticed that the goats' coats started getting wiry and dry and also they've had problems with foot rot.  When your copper levels are right, you don't have all these problems.  It's been a year and four months since our last copper treatments, so it's time to do it again.

We ordered copper boluses off the Internet.  Ultra Cruz Goat Copper Bolus for Adults.  (Adult goats, that is).   The bolus is simply a gelatin capsule with copper oxide "shavings".  Each bolus is 4 grams and is a slow release form of copper.  If the goat is > 50 lbs. and > 3 months, they can get a 4 gram bolus.

We've stuck it in a banana and fed it to them or stuck it in a slice of balled up bread.  Sometimes they spit it up, though.  We opted to give it with a de-worming pill syringe.  We put some peanut butter in the plunger and then put the copper bolus so that it sticks in there and won't fall out.  Then we put some more peanut butter on top.  The goats like peanut butter, and it helps them to swallow the bolus.

Copper pill popper

The little tool is long and enables you to get the bolus in.

Past the lips and over the gums, lookout stomach, here it comes!

You grab the goat and lift its head up and use your fingers to open the mouth.  The syringe goes in and you try to push it down a bit and then hit the plunger.  The goat will taste the peanut butter and swallow it down.

Crocks with socks (very stylish!)

Except sometimes, even as hard as you try, they spit it up.  We don't give up.  We keep trying until we get the copper down them.  The bolus will last from 8 months to a year.  In the past, we've seen the health and vitality of their coats get better along with a reduction in their susceptibility of foot rot.  Hopefully, we'll see the same results with this dose.

Giving the Goats Copper

Yesterday evening it was cold and raining.  We just finished eating a big slice of quiche with fresh broccoli and pecans in it with sweet potatoes on the side.  Delicious!  I was ready to relax, but we had some work to do first.  It was time to administer copper boluses to our goats.  Not a fun job for us and probably not the goats, but it had to be done.

Copper boluses are capsules filled with tiny copper rods.  

They swallow the copper boluses and it sinks to the bottom of their rumen and will slow-release for 6-8 months.  This trace mineral helps eliminate parasites and gives them healthier hair and growth.  The instructions on the side of the cannister gives proper dosing per weight of the animal.

So, one by one, we got the goats up into the milking stanchion and closed the head gate.

I used a worming medication "pusher" tool for the task.  I pulled the plunger back and then filled the bottom with peanut butter and then stuck the copper bolus in the tool.  The peanut butter held it in place.  I put more peanut butter on top.

We lifted the goat's heads and I stuck the plunger deep down their throats and pushed.  The copper bolus went down the esophagus.  Tricia did try to hold their heads up so that they wouldn't spit up the copper pill.  Two of them did, but we promptly got it back in.  Look at Elsie being all nosy!  She wanted to know what all the commotion was in the barn on this Tuesday night!

At last we were done.  The last time that we administered the copper boluses, we saw very good results.  We hope to see the same this time.

Colorful Campfire

Yesterday we talked about the beautiful bright red color of Bull’s Blood Beets.  It got me to thinking about a recent fire we built in our fire pit in the backyard.  Quite often we will gather up all the sticks that fall out of the trees in our yard and we'll burn them in our fire pit.  We will place our patio chairs around the pit, light it up and enjoy just sitting around the fire, visiting and staring into the flames.

But why did the bright color of Bull's Blood Beets get me thinking about a fire in the fire pit? 

Benjamin stoking the fire

Benjamin collects metals of all kinds, including aluminum, brass, and copper.  He'll gather up a bunch of it and take it to a recycling center in Lake Charles to redeem for cash.  If you look at the 3 o'clock position on the fire pit below you'll see a coiled up piece of copper.  That's not part of a moonshine still.  He was seeing if he could make the copper melt, but we determined that copper melts at 1,984 degrees Fahrenheit.  A campfire will only get about 930 degrees.  So while he found that he couldn't melt the copper, he could sure get it soft enough to hammer it all out flat.

Heating up copper

As he heated the copper we started to notice something odd, though.

See anything strange?

First a little bit...

Green Flames

And then a lot!  The flames leaping up out of the fire pit above where he had laid the pieces of copper were a beautiful green color!

Why is this happening?  Why does burning copper cause green flames?  Well, Google told me that green flames are caused by burning copper.  Now I barely remember these terms from high school chemistry, but apparently when you burn copper, you free valence electrons and make ions.  The energy that the electron gives off in this process is emitted as a photon in the color of green.

It sure was pretty, but I'm not going to pretend I still remember what an ion or photon is!  Sure is pretty though.