How much urea is to much urea?

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Amo

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Well I've whiteled down my cornstalk supplement choices. One tub is a 30% with 17% urea/npn. I'm not real crazy about that much urea as I can buy the 30-10 I normally use for the same money, plus a couple of other advantages. The 30-17 tub supposedly has a complete mineral package with aviala 4 and amaferm.

I guess one of my bigger concerns is that much urea. On the flip side I can get a 25% all natural for about 12 cents a pound more than either one of these with urea. I don't think it has a complete mineral package or the amaferm. I'm not sure this time of year I need all the mineral in there either but if I don't have to provide mineral that cheapens up the tub of price. Plus they don't consume the proper amount of mineral when on tubs. So all of that together is kind of making the 30-17 tub at the front of the pack. Force a seed stock producers the person who is selling it and he uses it himself. 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
what type of minerals are in the mineral package. If they are oxides you just as well light your money on fire and feed the ashes as much good as they will get from oxide minerals
 
Agreed. Guy said I could find information/feed tag on the internet about them. Ignitor is the brand name. Found some tubs, but nothing with the amaferm in them. So IDK if it's his own blend or what. He sells bulls etc, so I'd think he wouldn't go cheap on that part. Got to keep the tubs competitive in price to. Guessing that's why it's 17 npn.
 
heavy feedlot cattle 1% of DMI or ~ 100-110grams
backgrounders 0.5% of DMI or ~ 50grams
cattle with a functioning rumen could start utilizing NPN at about 350lbs, but I would never use it on feeders less than 600lbs+.
Just because.
 
One of the big things about tubs is how they are mixed. Our guys went through several plants to see where to have ours made and they settled on Ridley, out of Whitewood SD. The make tubs in different formulations for different companies.

Mineral does not stay mixed in tubs, it is usually found in pockets, so I wouldn't worry much about the mineral package in the tubs. We tell our customers to put mineral out with the tubs. They won't eat much mineral when the tubs are out so you don't have to figure the total cost of feeding mineral. (Besides that, feeding mineral doesn't cost, it pays.) 🙂

10% urea is all the urea we put in our tubs. Those on the GAP program get the All Natural Protein tubs, no urea. No feather meal...

Mineral is important during gestation. I would say summer is the best time to cut back on feeding mineral...except the calves eat it which helps with herd health.

 
Ya, a ridley or vitalyx is hard to beat. Not sure who manufactures this tub. I think it's a loomix company.

Ya, I'm a believer in mineral. Just stating that that if it's in the, available, and mixed at a proper rate to coincide with intake it wouldn't be all bad. I'd probably still have salt and mineral out. One thing that's always concerned me though about feeding tubs in the winter is they back off on loose mineral intake. So I've always kind of wondered whether they were getting enough minerals if I was feeding the tubs. Maybe it isn't very consistent and is in pockets big if they're eating it in the tub and they're probably going to eat more of it than if I feed a tub without mineral and least mineral is what I'm wondering
 
The only mineral a cow can self recognize and consume when they are low on is salt .if cattle have sufficient salt they will not consume dry mineral regardless of how deficient they may be .
 
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Well I've whiteled down my cornstalk supplement choices. One tub is a 30% with 17% urea/npn. I'm not real crazy about that much urea as I can buy the 30-10 I normally use for the same money, plus a couple of other advantages. The 30-17 tub supposedly has a complete mineral package with aviala 4 and amaferm.

I guess one of my bigger concerns is that much urea. On the flip side I can get a 25% all natural for about 12 cents a pound more than either one of these with urea. I don't think it has a complete mineral package or the amaferm. I'm not sure this time of year I need all the mineral in there either but if I don't have to provide mineral that cheapens up the tub of price. Plus they don't consume the proper amount of mineral when on tubs. So all of that together is kind of making the 30-17 tub at the front of the pack. Force a seed stock producers the person who is selling it and he uses it himself. 🤷🏻‍♂️
I would not shy away from the tub with the urea because consumption will be low enough so as not to be a problem. If it contains Availa-4 and Amadeus that's even better. Availa- 4 is a product manufactured by Zinpro Corp and provides zinc manganese copper and cobalt in a complex form and is almost totally utilized by the cattle. Amaferm will increase feed efficiency. Both are excellent products and well worth the money. If you decide to forego the tubs I'd recommend a mineral with the Availa-4 in it. It's well worth the little extra it will cost you. BTW unlike yeast products which begin to deteriorate the minute you open the bag Amaferm iOS not activated until it is in the rumen. Best wishes.
 
The only mineral a cow can self recognize and consume when they are low on is salt .if cattle have sufficient salt they will not consume dry mineral regardless of how deficient they may be .
I disagree with this based on observation of my cows. Loose white salt in one end of the covered bunk, Wind & Rain mineral in the other end. Wind & Rain placed in the bunk first so in the middle it was covered by Loose salt. They were hitting each about the same till August. As summer was winding down they went after the Wind & Rain hard, even licking up under the loose salt where the two met in the trough. I put out another 50# of Wind and Rain about 2-3 weeks ago and noticed yesterday they are out again. Plenty of loose salt there.
I think as the grass starts cutting out they hit the minerals harder.
 
I disagree with this based on observation of my cows. Loose white salt in one end of the covered bunk, Wind & Rain mineral in the other end. Wind & Rain placed in the bunk first so in the middle it was covered by Loose salt. They were hitting each about the same till August. As summer was winding down they went after the Wind & Rain hard, even licking up under the loose salt where the two met in the trough. I put out another 50# of Wind and Rain about 2-3 weeks ago and noticed yesterday they are out again. Plenty of loose salt there.
I think as the grass starts cutting out they hit the minerals harder.
Agreed, OldScout.
Quality and Quantity of forage dictates mineral consumption. You can't fool a cow. Ever notice if you put good hay and lesser quality hay out, they will eat the best hay first? Same with forage quality and quantity.
You can use mineral consumption as a management tool. If they start to overeat mineral, many times the forage has deteriorated or the goodie forage is gone. When you move them to fresh pasture, you will see them cut consumption because the forage is better.
 
Urea - the real question is % utilized. The answer I found was a max of 7%. All other goes thru the cow. So the high % protein from urea is true but useless if you know what they can use. Buyer beware.
 
Urea - the real question is % utilized. The answer I found was a max of 7%. All other goes thru the cow. So the high % protein from urea is true but useless if you know what they can use. Buyer beware.
In a tub where each cow only consumes one pound per head per day she actually consumes very little urea so most if not all will be utilized. Back to the original question a cow can safely consume about 4 oz per head per day of urea.
 
Here are two different articles by two different universities that disagree with old scout and faster horses that cows can't self regulate mineral consumption.
What I see real world vs what some professor says, Hmmmm.
Think I'll put mineral out when they've eaten it up and left the white salt.
 
The only mineral a cow can self recognize and consume when they are low on is salt .if cattle have sufficient salt they will not consume dry mineral regardless of how deficient they may be .
Add phosphorus to that as well.
 
Add phosphorus to that as well.
Phosphorus is a limiter as is salt. We had gumbo grass in a pasture. Cattle would not eat mineral in that pasture, same with the neighbors. They had gumbo too. We tested that gumbo grass. Guess what? High in phos, so of course they wouldn't eat mineral because they didn't need the phos while in that pasture. When we moved them and same with the neighbors, the cattle hit the mineral again and ate more than usual for awhile. They overate to get the copper stores up in their liver. I agree with OldScout. Real world vs. university studies. After all, what could go wrong in a university study? We work with people in the real world every day.
 
Phosphorus is a limiter as is salt. We had gumbo grass in a pasture. Cattle would not eat mineral in that pasture, same with the neighbors. They had gumbo too. We tested that gumbo grass. Guess what? High in phos, so of course they wouldn't eat mineral because they didn't need the phos while in that pasture. When we moved them and same with the neighbors, the cattle hit the mineral again and ate more than usual for awhile. They overate to get the copper stores up in their liver. I agree with OldScout. Real world vs. university studies. After all, what could go wrong in a university study? We work with people in the real world every day.
Most all minerals could be called "limiters" but like salt, phosphorus is one a cow can recognize her need for it and consume it even if it does taste bad. Salt is not always a limiter either especially if the need sodium.
 
They can build up a tolerance to salt.

If a cow can recognize a need for phosphorus, then why didn't the mineral boxes, can't remember what they are called--but they were boxes side by side for different minerals and were about 4 or 5 feet high. Phos went in one box, copper in another, etc. Idea was cattle were to eat what they needed. Findings were that cattle ate what was on the end box. When that was gone, they went to the next box. I wish I could remember what those were called. You don't see them around any more. They didn't work.
 

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