Interesting thread!!
I do not know the answers, however I am doing a little research totally on my own to see what the outcome is. Have been playing with it for two years now. There has been lots of talk about kelp, is it worth the money or not and I don't pretend to know the answer but hope to learn eventually. This is not very professional, however trying to see what the outcome is for me.
This is the result for this year so far. Early in the year the cows won't even touch my phosphorus minerals but will go for the kelp, calcium minerals and salt. When the grass got here and they calved they backed off of the kelp a little and started consuming the phosphorus minerals more and backing off on the calcium minerals, still the same amount of salt. (Redmond sea salt by the way.) After the first rush of grass was over they backed way off on the kelp, 1 gallon would last 35 head for 3 weeks, early on they were consuming a gallon in 3 days.
Now we will go to early winter.
We are still grazing and they want a gallon of kelp in 3 days again, same amount of salt and won't touch mineral of any sort??? Different pasture of course, so I can add that to the confusion. So I decided to try something else. I gave them pure A.D.E. and pure yeast as a seperate dessert to see if they like that?? The result..........the fight was on and that is the first thing they go for? Not sure what this is telling me other than the cows are smarter than I am. But there seems to me there has to be something in the kelp for certain times of the year?
I am now doing tissue testing as well to see if I can figure this out.
Sorry, no real answers, just some info for you to ponder on.