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Crystalyx and other mineral supplements

B

Ben H

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 20, 2006
Messages
1,738
Location
Gorham, ME
I've been using a bagged/loose mineral mixed/regulated with salt. Crystalyx caught my attention with their fly control. Who is using their products and most importantly what are you paying, I'm also interested in intake and cost per day of other minerals. The Guide that Crystalyx sent me had an estimate of $80 for 250 lb. At .75 lb per day that is $.24 per head per day. Sounded good. A friend of mine who works for a feed distributor got me some prices but they seem a little high.

$79.95/125# for the Rabon block for fly control

$35.85/60#; $119.50/250# for Brigade

These are the two they carry but can get any by special order.

For the large container of Brigade that figures out to $0.36 per head per day.
 
The vigortone I feed with the IGR comes out to 12 cents per day that would be the 3V4-SCTC-IGR so its medicated also for that price figureing they eat 4 ounces per day my cows have averaged about 3 oz. per hd. per day for a cost of 9 cents per day.
 
Rabon is not a good fly control product. It is very bitter.
IGR has taken over the Rabon market.

I think 24 cents per head per day is a LOT for fly control.

Get it in your mineral and you can do it for half that (or
even less) and still get the mineral in them. In our country,
we use a mineral with less phosphorus early on when
the grass is good, so that the cattle eat enough of the mineral
to get what they need of the IGR. It is formulated so that if they
eat HALF the recommended mineral that the IGR will still work.

Why would you need to add a protein source (expensive) in the summer time?

Remember, with a molasses tub you are buying a LOT of cheap molasses and paying a high price for it.

Remember your objective. Mineral and fly control.
No need to add more to it, it will just cost you money.

The secret to oral fly control is to get it (IGR) in the
cattle early, before the first onset of flies, and keep it out
late enough in the fall to get the carry-over so that
you won't have the hatch next year first thing in the spring.

Has anyone explained to you the life cycle of the fly and
do you know how far from the host animal they fly? All this
is something to take into consideration.

Hope this helps!
 
Faster is IGR/ vigortone available in Canada? We could sure use horn fly controling mineral here in the summer. Some say sulpher blocks help. I ussually buy my mineral by the one ton tote bag with salt in as well.
 
I tried an IGR mineral by cargill last year on a smaller bunch of cattle. I didn't feel like it gave me the fly control that I wanted, but maybe I never gave it a good enough chance. I figured my biggest problem was not all animals were eating the mineral.
As far as protein tubs (without flycontrol), have used them off and on. I put them out in parts of pasture that have not been grazed much. Some times it only the lucky few cows that find them.
Fly control is something I need to get under control and have not found the magic solution yet
 
Is there any problem with flies becoming resistant to the control chemical by feeding it steady. I don't use anything at all-I think in the long run you'll get cattle who can handle it. I know new cows have a tough summer the odd time. We used fly tags when they first came out but didn't see any magical increases in profits.
 
Elwapo, send a PM to Big Muddy Rancher. He would know if Vigortone is
available to you. He knows more about that than I do.

Horseless, how far from other cattle were the cows you tried the IGR
on? Horn flies can fly half a mile to host animals. If you have cattle
that close or closer, you aren't going to see the results you would
like, unless all the cattle are on IGR.

And again, you need to start the fly control early and keep it out
til the first frost in the fall. If you do this, you will see a dramatic
decrease in fly load. Remember, we are NEVER going to get rid
of all the flies. What we are doing is keeping the fly load down
to less than 100 cows per animal. IGR works on HORN FLIES
as they are the ones that cause economic damage. Horn flies
are the flies that are on a cows back that point downward. Horn
flies are also the flies that cause cattle to bunch up. When they are
bunched, they aren't making you any money. That is how to tell
if your fly control is working. Are your cattle bunched up, or are
they out grazing most of the day?

We get a couple of hatches of flies in our country. One early and one again in August. In areas where flies are a real problem, more than one
fly management tool might be necessary. You might need to get them
in, say in August, and pour them with something to kill some of
the existing flies. Cylence is a wonderful product for that. Cheap and easy to apply and lasts quite awhile.

Horn flies cost producters a LOT of money each year. I can tell you that our customers that use the fly control ship the heaviest calves.

NR, there has never been any evidence of cattle building immunity
to IGR. If you have time to do a google seach, IGR is really pretty amazing. IGR stands for Insect Growth Inhibitor. It has no taste, vs
Rabon, which is very bitter.
 
we use fly tags on the purebred bull calves only. You really can see the difference in fly season. Their mothers benefit too,must be insecticde rubbing off on them when they nurse. The steers and heifers run without fly tags as I cant justify tag cost, and it is not every year that flys are a problem.
 
Faster horses said:
Rabon is not a good fly control product. It is very bitter.
IGR has taken over the Rabon market.

I think 24 cents per head per day is a LOT for fly control.

Get it in your mineral and you can do it for half that (or
even less) and still get the mineral in them. In our country,
we use a mineral with less phosphorus early on when
the grass is good, so that the cattle eat enough of the mineral
to get what they need of the IGR. It is formulated so that if they
eat HALF the recommended mineral that the IGR will still work.

Why would you need to add a protein source (expensive) in the summer time?

Remember, with a molasses tub you are buying a LOT of cheap molasses and paying a high price for it.

Remember your objective. Mineral and fly control.
No need to add more to it, it will just cost you money.

The secret to oral fly control is to get it (IGR) in the
cattle early, before the first onset of flies, and keep it out
late enough in the fall to get the carry-over so that
you won't have the hatch next year first thing in the spring.

Has anyone explained to you the life cycle of the fly and
do you know how far from the host animal they fly? All this
is something to take into consideration.

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

You're exactly right that I don't need the protein. I tried tubs quickly last spring but went back to a bagged mineral regulated with salt. One of the problem with the protein in a tub is that too much protein actually requires more energy to process that extra protein and therefore reduce your rate of gain. I practice MiG so protein in my pasture is never an issue. The tubs just seemed like an easy way to provide the mineral and get another form of fly control. Yes, I do have an uderstanding of the fly cycle. I hadn't heard of IGR, I guess Crystalyx just did a better job marketing.
 
Ben, most mineral companis have switched to IGR instead of Rabon. Rabon can still be got in some minerals but mostly it seems to be in the fly blocks and molasses tubs.. It is cheaper so maybe the added sweat of the mollasses helps deal with the taste issure..

Most mineral companies that I ahve seen offer IGR but you might have to look around a bit.Kent does, Hubbard (Same company as crystalx)does I think, I'm pretty sure Cargill and Purina do and I know Vigortone does...

My nieghbors have cattle and don't use the stuff so even if we do ue it is only a little bit affective..I may or may not use it this year. I need to decide soon however.

We used to use tubs for corn stalk grazing but the distillers eems a better option.
 
We run cattle in alot of marshy, swamp areas where the circles go through and can't be used to put up hay. We used the Purina with the IGR in it from March until Spetmber this year and all it did was cost us $4 more per bag. We don't get much horn fly, which is what the IGR is used for, we get face flies, mosquitos and all sorts of other bugs. The only thing that worked for us was to get my dogs out and keep the cattle bunched togehter while we sprayed them. The cattle ate the heck out of the mineral the whole time, but it didn't even touch the flies.
 
I guess the best thing is good pasture rotation. I was rotating with tumble wheels this summer, I kept one end anchored and moved them in an arc. The reason was that I had one waterer. My Pinkeye was due to them coming back to that single water source. My situation is not ideal but I've been improving a lot as I can since I've moved home and gotten back from the Sandbox (Iraq). I found a company in PA that sells quick couplings for water lines so I can move a small, high flow stock tank between paddocks.
 
FH - We feed Vigortone 3v4-s. This doesn't have any IGR in it. Sometimes we mix it with salt, sometimes not.

In the summer we use dust bags for fly sontrol. Will vigortone 3v4-SCTC-IGR control flies.

I can't tell you how much a cow eats in a day - it is always there for them around water sources. We notice that they don't eat much mineral when the grass is green.

How expensive is it to get the IGR in our mineral? And would you feed it yeaer round or just in fly months?
 
practicing MiG makes me wonder the best way to provide access to pesticide other then ear tags. To have a rub or dustbag in every single paddock would be a big expense.
 
The grassfed program that buys our calves does MIG and the herdsman says the best thing he does is mix up a jug and spray them when the flies get too bad. He used Saber last year and thought it worked real well.
 
I find reading these posts about differnt things brings alot of ideas up that we aren't really discusing. Sort of taking a range tour with out leaving home.
This mineral thread started to bring out other management ideas.
Like Bens rotation scheme and relating the pink eye to water location and how he's going to solve it Ect. Thse sort of posts are the BEST. :cowboy: dang i hope Horsefly dosen't see i started smoking again. :wink:
 
Ben, there has gotta be a way to maybe to get some sort of portable panel system that the cows have to go into to get their mineral/water.. I am sure I have even seen some. Put a rub where they have to walk through to get to the water they are going to be drinking.....

We will probably just use cylence when we give the cows their pregguard shots but that will only give a short time if the flies are bad.. i am generally more concerned about the calves being tormented in a bad fly year but I guess they can get treated when we work them for first shots and second shots in July.... I am reluctant to go the IGR route again because even at only another 160-240 bucks a ton can add up over the season.... Might try it again.. At least reduce my contributon to the hrn fly problem in the area,
 
Cowpuncher, I will try to answer your questions.

First we need to have some kind of idea of consumption.
In the spring we recommend 35SPLIGR (now 3V5SIGR) because
the new grass contains enough phosphorus. Phos is a limiter
and cattle won't over eat phos. The 3V5 products are less money
so that works well for the producer. Then as the grass dries out,
we recommend changing to 3V4SIGR or 3V2SIGR so consumption
won't get too high like it would if you continuted using 3V5SIGR.

It is designed so that if the cattle consume 2 OZ of mineral
they will ingest enough IGR to control the flies effectively. What the IGR
does, is interfere with the life cycle of the fly. They hatch immaturely and cannot fly.

The cost per ton seems like quite a bit more, but when you consider
cattle don't eat as much mineral in the spring, that helps the cost
factor. Just off the top of my head, I think adding IGR increases the
price of the mineral by $4.00/ bag. As Denny and I both said,
you can feed the IGR and the mineral for about 12 cents per day.
We both just figured that pretty fast, but we both came up with the
same cost (and we didn't even discuss it.)

No need to feed IGR year round. Try to get it out early enough for
the first hatch of flies (3-4 days of 60 degree weather) and keep it out late enough in the fall. That means at least until the first hard frost.

We also don't recommend mixing salt with 3V4S. If you can, provide
loose salt individually in another feeder. There is no way you or I,
can mix that salt in as good as the plant can. When you do it by hand,
you have just taken away the expensive machinery and ability Vigortone has for mixing the mineral so well. Vigortone is proud of the fact that the last mineral out of the bag looks just like the first mineral out of the bag. There is no difference.

(I just meant that as a little tip.) When mixing it by hand, a cow might
get her salt requirement for the week and not get her mineral requirement for the day. We do recommend loose salt be fed as opposed
to block salt, but you are doing that anyway or you couldn't mix it in.

Also, Altosid (IGR) is available by itself and you can you mix with regular
mineral if you want. It mixes pretty well as it doesn't take all that much IGR per bag. We have a few people that do that, or they might do that toward the end of the fly season so they don't have mineral with IGR to carry over.

I know that if you can cut down on fly load, your calves WILL be
heavier as a result. It also helps with loss of fluids in the cow and
as a result increases milk production.

Hope this helps.
 
One of my thoughts was to make some soft of drag or trailer that I can move with the ATV that would have the minerals and some type of rub or face flips go get some insecticide. Some of the challenges would be stability if I used a full roll or insecticide dripping into the minerals if the face flips were over it. Some advocate getting the mineral balance up in the soil for the plants and allowing a natrual nutrient cycle to form with the cow depositing back. In our soil there will never be enough selenium, so no matter what, I need minerals fed.
These are the minerals I buy, I buy the Beef Cattle one. http://www.georgecgould.com/Beef.html

If I understand this correctly then I should not be buying a product with the salt in it, as I am now, that I should feed the salt seperate.

I see that they have one mix with Rabon, I'll have to inquire about IGR, but even the one with Rabon isn't an option for me. For the market I have I choose not to use ionophores or antibiotics, which that one has oxytet. I don't really have anything against Ionophoes, I always did advocate them and use them until I tried selling a "naturaly raised" product. Antibiotics in the feed is another issue that I'm against. Primarily for the theory of creating resistant bacteria as has been done by feeding cattle corn diets and dropping the Rumen's pH, are good friend E. Coli 0157:H7
 
Ben check out past issues of The Stockman grass farmer. In one the fellow had fly traps that the cattle walked thru on way to water and strips of canvas brushed the flys off and they were trapped some how. Not very practical on a large scale ranch but in a smaller rotation system it might be the cats meow.
 

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