Well, Jason while I respect your opinion, watching the cows, seeing something not right-- it is often times too late. The wreck is on. I know from personal experience. Feeding trace mineral salt is a joke, does nothing for the cow. They can't get enough trace minerals to do them any good. Trust me on that.
We also 'got by' for years, but then we were in a major wreck, brought on by purchasing some registered cows and bringing disease into our herd who did not have a good immune system to fight off the new disease. We found later (much later) that where we lived, the water contained sulfates which tie up copper and zinc, which is what is needed for a good immune system.
I hope what happened to us, never happens to you! Sometimes we are walking a tightrope and never know it until we fall off. If things were different in Canada I would challange you to put a group of your cattle on mineral and monitor the difference in performance. I can almost guarantee you would see a difference.
When we ask cattle to perform as we do, they cannot do it being shorted on nutrition. MSU has done many studies here in Montana and they have found we are short of copper and zinc. As for the calcium you mentioned, that is what was previously thought--there was plenty of calcium in the feed. However, now it has been found that that source of calcium is not as available to the cow as originally thought.
We purchased a bull a couple years ago. He was the only bull that was not on our mineral program. Out of all the bulls here, guess which one got hoof rot? Yep, him. And he was the only one. It is incidences like this that I pay attention to and confirms my belief in a good mineral program. When you are not on a good mineral program, you live with things you think are normal. Get on a program and watch a lot of problems disappear. I have lived it, and seen it happen with other producers. I do not believe in purchasing a lot of protein as I believe most forage contains enough protein, but I do believe in supplementing what we know to be missing in our forage. Filling in the gap does wonders for your cattle.
Once again, I do respect you and your opinion. I have read your posts here most favorably and my hat has been off to you for a long time.