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Local vet pulled the samples and had the analysis done through our state diagnostic lab. To back track, a few years ago I made a bunch of managment changes and had a 'train wreck'. Started losing cows to really odd ball diseases. Had a couple of sit downs with the state Extension Food Animal vet and she got to thinking trace mineral deficiencies. Sure enough, my cows were coming back testing below .2 ppm serum copper where below 25 ppm is low. This area was already known to be severely low in selenium so I was using a high selenium custom mix at both farms. I was cleaning afterbirth from 5-6 cows a year, added the high selenium and I havent cleaned a cow since 1988. The exotic death losses were only at one farm so the nutritionist took the copper levels and started adding a chelated copper to that mix. Sure enough, all the odd ball problems went away. Normally, it takes a year to make significant copper gains with copper sulfate, within 90 days using the chelated copper they were testing above 25. Have to watch the custom mixes close, the one I am using has enough copper in it to kill sheep. Now, I just get baselines done if I lose a calf or cow rather than whole herd sampling. When I say exotic, 10 cases of cows to salmonella (but they didnt scour, and not a single calf sick with it), 2 cases of actinomycosis, and 2 cases of botulism. Stuff you just dont see unless you have severe immune system problems. This turned into some research studies and they found several really severe copper deficiencies. A lot of theories now that copper deficiencey may be behind the poor health performance of a lot of Ky cattle in western feedlots, to the point that most of our value added programs now call for copper supplimentation.
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