wbvs58
Well-known member
You probably don't have the problem with phosphorous that we have, your soils are not depleted in phosphorous like ours and you people seem to be a lot more diligent with mineral supplements than we are.
We have just come out of winter. I have had the mineral out most of the time but they haven't been touching it. I have the cows split up a bit as they have been calving so have got a bit slack with keeping the mineral up to them. I have a group of 12 cows and their calves in my scrub block next door, I call it the tin mine. There is 12 acres that I cleared last year and roughly broadcast some feed oats to cover the ground and it has been very successfull. I have left the gate open to it for these cows for about a month now and they are only slowly getting it down.
I have been doing some work up the back this week burning stacks of timber and coming back a forth I have noticed cows always seemed to be at the one spot and then I realised they were chewing the scattered bones of a cow I dumped there about 10 years ago that died of bloat. Chewing bones would not be a problem in itself except that it is a good way for them to get botulism. Last year during the drought I lost 2 cows in there that were otherwise healthy and only found them months after but suspected the cause of death to be botulism. Finding these cows chewing on bones strengthens my suspicion of botulism as the cause of death.
I got the cows out of there today and have been pouring the mineral into them and boy do they go through a bag fast. I plan to put the CIDRS into them tomorrow so am hoping the P levels rise quickly as low P is a big negative to fertility. I find the craving for phosphorous comes on very quickly and the times that they are chasing it is more when feed is lush.
Ken
We have just come out of winter. I have had the mineral out most of the time but they haven't been touching it. I have the cows split up a bit as they have been calving so have got a bit slack with keeping the mineral up to them. I have a group of 12 cows and their calves in my scrub block next door, I call it the tin mine. There is 12 acres that I cleared last year and roughly broadcast some feed oats to cover the ground and it has been very successfull. I have left the gate open to it for these cows for about a month now and they are only slowly getting it down.
I have been doing some work up the back this week burning stacks of timber and coming back a forth I have noticed cows always seemed to be at the one spot and then I realised they were chewing the scattered bones of a cow I dumped there about 10 years ago that died of bloat. Chewing bones would not be a problem in itself except that it is a good way for them to get botulism. Last year during the drought I lost 2 cows in there that were otherwise healthy and only found them months after but suspected the cause of death to be botulism. Finding these cows chewing on bones strengthens my suspicion of botulism as the cause of death.
I got the cows out of there today and have been pouring the mineral into them and boy do they go through a bag fast. I plan to put the CIDRS into them tomorrow so am hoping the P levels rise quickly as low P is a big negative to fertility. I find the craving for phosphorous comes on very quickly and the times that they are chasing it is more when feed is lush.
Ken
