anyone NOT use mineral?

[John SD]

If they're eatin 500lbs of mineral a month there's something going
On. Is It One of those minerals that has proteins in it too?

My 150 cows were eating 50 lbs of mineral a day through the winter months while grazing dormant winter grass. Vigortone 3V2s or 3V4S and some Payback Ultramin 12-6 Plus were the main entree, along with Ranch Hand 8% Phos mineral tubs. No protein in any of the above. Also kept lots of loose and block TM salt in front of them at all times.

The cows have slacked off mineral a bit now with green grass slowly coming.

 

[Anonymous]

He only was reporting about 30 head. Not 150

 

[John SD]

He only was reporting about 30 head. Not 150

OK, put another way my 150 cows were eating 1500 lbs of mineral per month. Not quite as much on a per head per day basis as his 30 head, but still seems like a lot especially compared to previous years when I am feeding hay from Christmas on.

The guy at the feed store said he was selling a lot of mineral this past winter because of the extended winter grazing season.

 

[cow pollinater]

It could also be bored cattle. If you make it really easy on them they'll take advantage of it. I put out protien tubs in places that are conveniant for the cattle only when I want to suplement protien. They will stand there and lick it regardless of their need for protien and minerals.
The rest of the time its sack mineral in a waterpfoof tub so that even if it rains the mineral stays put. I place it at points where the cattle have to push out to new areas to get it. I'm a little easier on them with mineral but if they want white salt they have to travel to the areas they normally wouldn't go to. That way they'll use the feed more evenly rather than just eating in the same area all of the time.
Edited to add: I didn't use any mineral at all for awhile and I decided it was cheaper to put out a few sacks than it was to go rope sick cattle and pay for extra semen. a few doses of antibiotics and the time it takes to rope a footrot cow is more than a sack of mineral... Ever extra straw of good semen is worth a sack of mineral...

 

[TexasBred]

It could also be bored cattle. If you make it really easy on them they'll take advantage of it. I put out protien tubs in places that are conveniant for the cattle only when I want to suplement protien. They will stand there and lick it regardless of their need for protien and minerals.
The rest of the time its sack mineral in a waterpfoof tub so that even if it rains the mineral stays put. I place it at points where the cattle have to push out to new areas to get it. I'm a little easier on them with mineral but if they want white salt they have to travel to the areas they normally wouldn't go to. That way they'll use the feed more evenly rather than just eating in the same area all of the time.
Edited to add: I didn't use any mineral at all for awhile and I decided it was cheaper to put out a few sacks than it was to go rope sick cattle and pay for extra semen. a few doses of antibiotics and the time it takes to rope a footrot cow is more than a sack of mineral... Ever extra straw of good semen is worth a sack of mineral...

Glad to hear this CP. Location and relocation of protein and mineral in reference to water sources forces cattle to graze larger areas. Basically the same strategy used when using intake limiter feeds.

 

[angus9259]

Edited to add: I didn't use any mineral at all for awhile and I decided it was cheaper to put out a few sacks than it was to go rope sick cattle and pay for extra semen. a few doses of antibiotics and the time it takes to rope a footrot cow is more than a sack of mineral... Ever extra straw of good semen is worth a sack of mineral...

So now that you use mineral, no more sick cattle or open cows? Less? How many less? How can you actually corrolate that they were sick or open due to mineral?

 

[cow pollinater]

Footrot is a fairly common ailment in our foothill cattle. I haven't had a case this year while a nieghbor of mine that doesn't use mineral has had three cases and he's only got forty cows with genetics similar to mine. I can't really say on grass tetany as we never got the conditions right for it to hit hard but I haven't seen any this year. Same with scours.
On my registered herd, I don't see the copper color on the tops of my angus cows anymore and I am getting them bred back alot faster. I got to where I was syncing cows when I wasn't using mineral just to get them cycling at forty five days and for the last two years I've been able to breed them all on natural heats just by glancing at them once a day.
The real noticable diferance has been on the charolais heifers. I was having a hard time getting them cycling to calve as two year olds and now they're maturing a little quicker.
I had a dairyman that decided that mineral was just another way for feed salesman to make money and cattle didn't need it. To prove it he pulled it out of the feed without saying anything to anybody and sat back and waited. It took three weeks for the cattle to become deficient and about forty five days after that for me to notice that something was "off". The vets and herdsman didn't notice and it was subtle but it was there. I finally showed him on paper where things went bad and he put the mineral back in. It took about two weeks and then things got back to normal.

 

[TexasBred]

What was off??

 

[cow pollinater]

What was off??

The first sign was runny mucous or none at all on the hot cows. Then I started getting "cystics" that weren't cystic. We had about ten percent more opens on vet check but still really good checks. First service conception dropped but it held up in second and third service so nobody else noticed. I saw it because I was breeding more cows than I should be. (which is great for me but my job is to support the dairymans business)
I had to dig through dairy comp and go back for three years and show how the cows had performed year round, specifically under stress/heat stress, and then compare it to the year in question and then it was fairly obvious...Three weeks after he had pulled the mineral his components took a very slight dip, first service started to suck, mastitis became a little more of a problem heat stress lasted ALOT longer than it had in previous years... all of it was really subtle but when we started looking at specific dates it all pointed to just after he pulled the mineral.

 

[thwack]

The local Purina dealer says to use approx. 1 bag of W&R mineral per mature cow per year.

 

[angus9259]

It could also be bored cattle. If you make it really easy on them they'll take advantage of it. I put out protien tubs in places that are conveniant for the cattle only when I want to suplement protien. They will stand there and lick it regardless of their need for protien and minerals.


But how do YOU determine what THEIR need is? Maybe it is that high? Also - there's a recommended in take on these minerals that contain IGR and/or Bovatec so you can't/shouldn't hide it from them if they are within that range.

 

[ANAZAZI]

The mineral you feed changes the mineral profile of the land in long terms. It is recycled through urine and manure and comes back in the forage. On the new land the cows wolf down minerals and salt.
On the land we owned a long time the cows eat way less minerals and do not eat salt at all.
Both cases they have free access to it.

 

[tom4018]

The local Purina dealer says to use approx. 1 bag of W&R mineral per mature cow per year.

Guess he thinks the label is wrong, that is only 2 oz per day.

 

[3waycross]

The local Purina dealer says to use approx. 1 bag of W&R mineral per mature cow per year.

Guess he thinks the label is wrong, that is only 2 oz per day.

Guess that's the year round avg! Might not be too wrong.

 

[CKC1586]

What about selenium? If you drop the mineral supplement how you gonna get enough selenium to them???

Good question. My question: do they need it? As mentioned - plenty of folks around here just put out salt or nothing and don't seem to have any more or less problems than I do.

Losing a calf crop to white muscle disease would be quite a costly gamble! I wouldn't want to risk going without selenium.

 

[TexasBred]

Edited to add: I didn't use any mineral at all for awhile and I decided it was cheaper to put out a few sacks than it was to go rope sick cattle and pay for extra semen. a few doses of antibiotics and the time it takes to rope a footrot cow is more than a sack of mineral... Ever extra straw of good semen is worth a sack of mineral...

So now that you use mineral, no more sick cattle or open cows? Less? How many less? How can you actually corrolate that they were sick or open due to mineral?

Angus you won't always see obvious signs like really "sick" cattle. You just end up with a herd of cattle with different defficiencies. This can and will affect everything from milk production to estrus to conception to health of new borns even to life or death of newborns. In short a lot of unthrifty cows and calves.

 

[Anonymous]

Or to put it really short: hard doers

 

[fitz]

The local Purina dealer says to use approx. 1 bag of W&R mineral per mature cow per year.

That's pretty close for me. After this thread I went back and ran some numbers. My last year average ran 2.5 oz per day.

fitz

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

This thread made me look at my bill. I run less than $15/mature cows/year. We have custom mixed mineral with "the best" blah blah loose mineral (with salt included).
I have a friend that won't feed mineral. His cattle do all right. But, I wonder how much better they would do WITH a good mineral program???

 

[cow pollinater]

It's hard to say what I have into it as my cow numbers have changed ALOT this year but nothing has gone completely without by any stretch of the imagination and I'd bet that I'm under $10.00 per head and that's with no suplemental feed at all. The only tubs that I bought were to keep cattle hanging near the corrals and 50lb sack of dry stuff in a feeder goes a looong way unless the cattle are already deficient.