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<blockquote data-quote="anewcomer" data-source="post: 1838034" data-attributes="member: 18748"><p>I have long believed that what we DON'T know about minerals and their interactions with our cattle is more than what we DO know. This thread proves that. There have been several very good, if controversial, posts. The folks that have studied this can tell us the requirements of every vitamin and mineral required by our cattle, based on their age and physiological stage. I assume they are accurate. What we don't know is what portion of those requirements are being supplied by our forage/supplements. As gcreek has done, unless we test our forage and supplements, perhaps monthly, we will not know if we are providing sufficient nutrients.There are producers on this board who have never fed any minerals, including salt, and are very happy with their production. There are producers who feed a top of the line mineral package and swear their program would crash and burn without it. Who is right and who is wrong? There is tremendous variability in soils, and therefore forages, across the country. There can be tremendous deficiencies in certain elements in certain areas. Unless you know what your forages/supplements are providing, you are simply rolling the dice. A cow eating 4 oz/day of a $25/bag mineral is about $45-50/ cow/year. Is that money thrown away if they don't really need it, or is that money we pay out to be sure we're covering a potential shortfall that could be costing us in production? We need to know wife, what and when we need these supplemental materials and vitamins.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="anewcomer, post: 1838034, member: 18748"] I have long believed that what we DON’T know about minerals and their interactions with our cattle is more than what we DO know. This thread proves that. There have been several very good, if controversial, posts. The folks that have studied this can tell us the requirements of every vitamin and mineral required by our cattle, based on their age and physiological stage. I assume they are accurate. What we don’t know is what portion of those requirements are being supplied by our forage/supplements. As gcreek has done, unless we test our forage and supplements, perhaps monthly, we will not know if we are providing sufficient nutrients.There are producers on this board who have never fed any minerals, including salt, and are very happy with their production. There are producers who feed a top of the line mineral package and swear their program would crash and burn without it. Who is right and who is wrong? There is tremendous variability in soils, and therefore forages, across the country. There can be tremendous deficiencies in certain elements in certain areas. Unless you know what your forages/supplements are providing, you are simply rolling the dice. A cow eating 4 oz/day of a $25/bag mineral is about $45-50/ cow/year. Is that money thrown away if they don’t really need it, or is that money we pay out to be sure we’re covering a potential shortfall that could be costing us in production? We need to know wife, what and when we need these supplemental materials and vitamins. [/QUOTE]
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