Can cattle eat to much mineral

[Silver]

Can't seem to edit my last post. Should have read "less than 10% open and late" not 1%. Actual number 6.5%. Hate to be accused of fudging the numbers

 

[gcreekrch]

Can't seem to edit my last post. Should have read "less than 10% open and late" not 1%. Actual number 6.5%. Hate to be accused of fudging the numbers

Is the feed mill at Grande Prairie still going? There was a darn good nutritionist there 20 years ago. His name slips my mind at present.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Can't seem to edit my last post. Should have read "less than 10% open and late" not 1%. Actual number 6.5%. Hate to be accused of fudging the numbers

Either way, Kit says you are overfeeding your cows.

 

[Silver]

Can't seem to edit my last post. Should have read "less than 10% open and late" not 1%. Actual number 6.5%. Hate to be accused of fudging the numbers

Is the feed mill at Grande Prairie still going? There was a darn good nutritionist there 20 years ago. His name slips my mind at present.

Might be. The fellow that put on the last seminar I was at was a nutritionist named Jer Plesman from Valley Nutrition in Armstrong. I'm inclined to go in his direction should I head down that route.

 

[gcreekrch]

Can't seem to edit my last post. Should have read "less than 10% open and late" not 1%. Actual number 6.5%. Hate to be accused of fudging the numbers

Is the feed mill at Grande Prairie still going? There was a darn good nutritionist there 20 years ago. His name slips my mind at present.

Might be. The fellow that put on the last seminar I was at was a nutritionist named Jer Plesman from Valley Nutrition in Armstrong. I'm inclined to go in his direction should I head down that route.

Dave Pringle from Sure Crop Feeds is our go to guy. Very knowledgeable and actually does keep the bottom line in mind.

 

[Silver]

Here is an interesting calculator. Input your feed analysis results in the fields to help interpret results of a hay test.

https://www.beefresearch.ca/research/feed-value-estimator.cfm

It tells me that my Ca ratio is a little out at 8.53 to 1, should be 7:1 or better. Ca is in the green but P is in the yellow.

Edit: ran the feed test for my later cut haylage and the ratio and levels was good, giving me "green" across the board. Go figure.

 

[Silver]

Someone else needs to chime in - but - I'm pretty sure the vets can do a liver biopsy on a live cow.
Just a note on mineral blocks. There is enough "mineral" in a block to fix their daily needs of maybe a couple cows IF they ate the whole thing in 1-2 days. (I always used to say "if a cow ate a whole block in 1 day - and I was corrected - it was enough for 2 cows LOL). In other words, they would EACH need to eat a block every two days. Just saying.

Because of course, all cattle everywhere do not get ANY mineral in any of their forage and rely solely on a mineral program for ALL of their nutrients.
Amazes me how many people throw money at a mineral program but don't know what they actually need.

 

[greggy]

You would have to do bloods to know....right.

I only give some salt and lime at times, but also feed a variety of novel feeds, after another few months or when vet is around, that is what I would do, some sample bloods...

A lot of this is prob with the view to get max performance with cost as a secondary consideration.

A bag of mineral is about 60 bucks here, cant be throwing bags at them for no reason...

Oh, you would have to know soil and what your pasture is made up of too, may only be deficient in one or some mineral, then you would expect that to be reflected in bloods?

 

[Nesikep]

For some minerals, blood tests are pretty accurate, for others (Copper for example), it's not the best, but can be used as a rough guideline... I hear you about the expense of it, and while the right mineral program may pay dividends, the wrong one can be quite a waste of money too, and in the worst case make things worse.

 

[elkwc]

The top minerals cost around $30.00 a bag around here. Didn't realize they were so much higher else where. By going to a complete mineral program and have seen the beneficial results. We are going to feed a liquid feed with a complete mineral package in at least one pasture as a trial this winter. They say to feed white salt only with it. Will see how it compares to our current program.

 

[Silver]

The top minerals cost around $30.00 a bag around here. Didn't realize they were so much higher else where. By going to a complete mineral program and have seen the beneficial results. We are going to feed a liquid feed with a complete mineral package in at least one pasture as a trial this winter. They say to feed white salt only with it. Will see how it compares to our current program.

You can get amino acid complexes for $30 a bag?

 

[Bright Raven]

Someone else needs to chime in - but - I'm pretty sure the vets can do a liver biopsy on a live cow.
Just a note on mineral blocks. There is enough "mineral" in a block to fix their daily needs of maybe a couple cows IF they ate the whole thing in 1-2 days. (I always used to say "if a cow ate a whole block in 1 day - and I was corrected - it was enough for 2 cows LOL). In other words, they would EACH need to eat a block every two days. Just saying.

The liver biopsies are done on live cows. Use a reliable vet. They restrain the cow and insert a cannula through the body wall and direct it into the liver. It comes out with a core of liver. I know a couple cases of folks having it done. Turned out fine but use a vet who has used the practice. Fire Sweep, a User on this site, has had her cows done. Hopefully she will comment. She uses VitaFerm ConceptAid but still found one deficiency, I think it was copper.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Some cattle breeds need more copper.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

"Most" areas in USA are Selenium deficient. Our area is extremely deficient. Research was done using my cows - blood work - not liver biopsy. We had to TRIPLE the normal dose to get the blood levels up where they should be.
Major difference in conception if I don't use a top notch balanced mineral program. And, I use it year round.
It is only expensive/costly IF it does not benefit your cows/calves.

 

[sstterry]

Along these lines, does anyone know the difference in price for the VitaFerm Concept•Aid Protein Tubs vs other higher quality tubs (I know the quality of tubs can vary greatly, but I am interested in a general price comparison).

 

[elkwc]

The top minerals cost around $30.00 a bag around here. Didn't realize they were so much higher else where. By going to a complete mineral program and have seen the beneficial results. We are going to feed a liquid feed with a complete mineral package in at least one pasture as a trial this winter. They say to feed white salt only with it. Will see how it compares to our current program.

You can get amino acid complexes for $30 a bag?

I have been using Vita Ferm products including Heat, Concept Aid and the Cow & Calf mineral. Have used both the standard and the high mag. The prices range from $26.00 - $32.00. Also use the Stress tubs for the calves when weaning.

 

[Bright Raven]

Here is the procedure:
https://cvm.msu.edu/vdl/laboratory-sections/nutrition/mineral-and-vitamin-testing-sample-collection-and-handling/liver-biopsy-procedure-in-cattle

 

[MurraysMutts]

So what I have gleaned from this is....

Without testing of multiple animals in the herd, ur just guessing basically?

I've went to this mineral program on the advice of a nutritionist. He went on to say more numerous things than I could ever pretend to remember about our area. Lol.

I'm thinking this advice is the best thing aside from extensive testing which at this point I simply cannot afford basically.

 

[Nesikep]

So what I have gleaned from this is....

Without testing of multiple animals in the herd, ur just guessing basically?

I've went to this mineral program on the advice of a nutritionist. He went on to say more numerous things than I could ever pretend to remember about our area. Lol.

I'm thinking this advice is the best thing aside from extensive testing which at this point I simply cannot afford basically.

If you're going to do testing, test the heaviest producing animals when they're producing.. say, 3 months after calving/ before breeding, that's the time you're going to see the best return on investment on mineral anyhow if you get better conception rates

 

[cjmc]

But I guess to answer you about ROI, if everything works for you now and you have no plans to push your herd any harder in the performance dept, there isn't much point.

One interesting thing he said was that up in the north where people feed over winter that you can get all the mineral you need into them over the winter where it's easier to monitor and control, and they store it and can then get through the summer without becoming deficient.

You must have very balanced soil profile then. No way would you get away with such a stunt here. The selenium deficiency here would kill your calves and the copper deficiency would give you up to 50% open.

The copper deficiency here is so bad that we feed more copper in our trace mineral salt than almost anywhere else. Here we buy the brown bag 952 Hi-Boot Windsor Salt which has 5,000 ppm copper to begin with and then add additional copper sulphate to a bag. It is the only way to maintain acceptable copper values in the livers here. One neighbor spent about $10,000 in nutritionist/veterinary consulting, liver biopsies and custom mineral formulations before they determined how badly the copper was being tied up by molybdenum. He is about 10,000 ppm for copper in his mineral/salt formulation, which most nutritionists would say would heavily poison a cow, but that just keeps his liver copper levels acceptable. He was consistently having 40-50% open cows and cows randomly getting very weak and dying before they figured it out.

What source of copper are they using? That's an insanely high level of copper.