another mineral question

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rws

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I posted a while back about feeding loose mineral, when I took the cows off the tm blocks and put out the loose mineral they was eating 50lb a week for 3 weeks, then 50lb every 2 weeks for about a month, now they dont seem like their touching it. I also have a straight white salt block out. I have 15 head of cows that should be in their last 3 months to calf. my question is should I remove the salt block so they will take in more minerals or should they be allright sense the mineral is free choice and they will eat it as needed thanks
 
Wow thats alot of mineral, BUT..cows are smart that way, they only eat as much mineral as they need, apparently they really needed that mineral at first, but now maybe their body's may be more balanced and don't crave as much, I don't think you need to change anything , just keep the mineral out there, and change the formulas a needed, ie: brood, spring, growth, and special requirements.

We feed all of our minerals and salt loose and free choice.

If you start into spring with lush pastures you maybe should bring in some hi-mag salt and mineral mixtures.
 
We use loose minerals and a slat block. There are periods when they seem to eat the minerals like candy and others that they don't use near as much. The salt blocks are used fairly consitant through out the year.
In most areas except maybe the frozen north, putting out the Hi-mag stuff now is about the right time if you have a spring calving season.

dun
 
Dun, what's a "slat" block?..... :)

I usually use 12/12 mineral and keep trace mineral blocks in all pastures. Also feed some range meal in the winter for extra salt, and usually have a sulfur block out with young calves. Also use high mag on winter pastures (when I have them), and high phos in the milking ones.
 
i normally mix a little extra salt with the minerals, i would remove the salt blocks. cows never get enough salt from blocks anyway. check on your mineral bag to see how much salt is in it , they vary alot, i try to keep it around 30 % salt
 
Howdy,

I would suggest a call to your local extension agent. Different requirements for different areas. Here in Northern Virginia, I keep Hi-Mag mineral free choice year round. Even with rotateing pastures and different grasses, Hi-Mag is preffered here due to the clay content of the soil.

Hi-Mag free choice only. Enough salt in it already. A combination of forage samples, soil samples, and nutrition analysis would get you in the proper mineral fro your area.
 
When feeding mineral to the cows, we like to mix one bag of loose salt for every bag of mineral. We also pull the salt blocks.

That being said, we only feed the mineral in the last trimester of pregnancy and to the newest calvers. After that it's back to the ol' selenium trace mineral salt block for them.

Take care.
 
We feed loose mineral year 'round, but we do change to hi-mag in the spring when the grasses are lush. They go through periods when they eat a LOT of mineral, then back off. I would keep up with the way you've been doing it!

We keep salt blocks out too.. sulphur salt and white. For some reason they prefer the sulphur blocks.
 
Keep the salt blocks out.If they get enough salt in the mineral ,then they won't lick the blocks but i've never heard of them gettin' too much salt.When they have had enough they quit. :roll:
 
CattleAnnie":giwb1mgv said:
When feeding mineral to the cows, we like to mix one bag of loose salt for every bag of mineral. We also pull the salt blocks.

That being said, we only feed the mineral in the last trimester of pregnancy and to the newest calvers. After that it's back to the ol' selenium trace mineral salt block for them.

Take care.
Cattle Annie thats close to what I like to do...except keep the mineral out through breeding season.....take the salt up when youre feeding salt based mineral so they have to eat the mineral becasue some will prefer just straight salt
 
wewild about 30 years ago all the major feed companies did some studies on it for dairy farmers & found they could not lick enough off from hard compressed blocks to satisfy their needs, so they had us start mixing loose salt in their grain. only time i ever heard of some getting too much salt is when they have been deprived of it for an extended period of time
 
jerry27150":3pe5gh65 said:
wewild about 30 years ago all the major feed companies did some studies on it for dairy farmers & found they could not lick enough off from hard compressed blocks to satisfy their needs, so they had us start mixing loose salt in their grain. only time i ever heard of some getting too much salt is when they have been deprived of it for an extended period of time

Makes me wonder how we are still in business. I was around 10 when the report was wrote and it wasn't in my comic books. Guess my dad and granddad missed it.
 
jerry27150":2ibn01t3 said:
wewild about 30 years ago all the major feed companies did some studies on it for dairy farmers & found they could not lick enough off from hard compressed blocks to satisfy their needs, so they had us start mixing loose salt in their grain. only time i ever heard of some getting too much salt is when they have been deprived of it for an extended period of time

Key word "dairy". The milking ability of these animals depletes their mineral base 10x faster. I've seen cattle licking the dirt and making holes where salt blocks used to be when they have been deprived of mineral blocks for a period of time.
 
Well, here goes. I wasn't going to reply to this post, because feeding mineral seems to be SOOOO contraversial. I think a lot of the reason is because requirements vary so much from region to region, and it is something that cannot be measured. I think the more you expect from your cowherd - the more important it is.
Anyway, we feed loose mineral year round with salt in it. NO salt blocks. We are extremely selenium deficient here, so (after several blood tests) we are trippling the dose of recommended selelium - not recommended for anyone else without testing.
Our loose mineral is recommended for 4 oz of consumption per day. So if you have 15 head X 4 oz X 7 days = 26.25# of mineral/week. So for them to consume 50# the first week, than 50# for 2weeks, I would say that would be normal. But, they should average about a bag every two weeks. I would recommend pulling the salt blocks & making sure your mineral has salt in it. JMO
 
Sounds to me like they are caught up on the mineral they need. I also would look to see if the mineral has salt in it alraedy. Sometimes they won't (mine) eat mineral if they have a salt source around. An example is with all the rain we have one of our tanks is pushing salt behind the dam. Cows spend all day over there licking the ground. HAd salt out, they seem to prefer the stuff on the ground.



Scotty
 

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