I find it kinda funny how different cattle ward off flies and how they consume mineral. Here we take in cattle from 3 different owners, and from 2 different parts of the country. The cattle here on the river come from around Wagner SD, are mainly Red Angus/Limmy cross cows, with Limmy bulls. By and large most of the high percentage Red Angus cows have vary few flies. The few black and black baldy cows seam to have more flies. We control flies here with a combination of Tactic and Atroban, mixed with diesel. As far as mineral, they are getting free choice salt blocks, mainly yellow, because I gotta heck of a deal on them, plus the mineral is CHS "Profit Maker", and so far the cows have only been eating 1.5 oz/day.
At our north place, the cows came in from 30 miles south of us. Get no fly control, no salt, and are limited to 4 oz/day of "Vitaferm" mineral. ( before any of you go off on how cows need salt, I just put out what the owners provide). The cows are basically Black/ Black Baldies. I do notice that these cows stay bunched up more during the day, but they have grazed the whole pasture, so obviously they are spreading out when I am not there. We do rotate pastures, but not intensively. My big pastures, they stay in 6 or 7 weeks, the smaller ones may 3 or 4, it all depends on the grass.
Just some of my observations.
