[21goaties]

I believe you guys, but I wanted to know if someone could explain it? Is it just because people have given selenium and seen the tails straighten? I'm guessing the reason their tails droop is because the muscles are weakened?

Here's a couple examples (pictures taken a few years ago) of selenium tails

 

[21goaties]

Bump

 

[toth boer goats]

Sometimes it is not selenium deficiency. Such as late term pregnancy.

Some have poor conformation, which can cause this too.

We have to be careful and not just automatically go to the selenium.

My opinion is, it is hard to really know for sure unless they are showing other signs of deficiency, or, they don’t lick their loose minerals and are in a low selenium area, or the feed intake doesn’t have enough selenium there.

There is a fine line really.

 

[alwaystj9]

Between copper deficient fishtails and crooked selenium tails (both of which I battle) I don't want to post any goat butt pictures!

 

[NigerianDwarfOwner707]

To my understanding, it’s a weakness. I think I’ve just seen enough correlation to see that almost all selenium deficient goats I see, with signs confirming such as weak pasterns and weak kids, they all have the selenium tail too. If it’s newly-acquired, I see it improve from supplementation. But sometimes it’s just too far gone and it doesn’t improve too much. So I am careful to know that a goat may be up to date on selenium inside but the tail just never recovered. The tail is always the last place to recover.

I take in a lot of different symptoms before going to selenium supplementation and I am also careful to do it in small amounts.

That being said, there are other causes of sideways tails. We have to

 

[21goaties]

Thanks for replying guys! So its not a 100% guarantee. The weakness thing makes sense.
Our goats are pets (no breeding/kidding) and most of them have selenium tails. Since we battle copper deficiency (well water with high iron) and are in a low selenium area I think they probably need Bo-Se. Or that selenium yeast stuff...

 

[NigerianDwarfOwner707]

Thanks for replying guys! So its not a 100% guarantee. The weakness thing makes sense.
Our goats are pets (no breeding/kidding) and most of them have selenium tails. Since we battle copper deficiency (well water with high iron) and are in a low selenium area I think they probably need Bo-Se. Or that selenium yeast stuff...

I would do selenium gel to get over a hump then offer on the side separate selenium salt licks like a SE90 by redmond or champion's choice.