RobertMac said:
Grassfarmer said:
I tried it for a couple of years and was rather disappointed. First year worked great and looked it was the solution to everything. Second year not so much, had a bad outbreak of pinkeye which the kelp did nothing to address. Showed the value of testing a product over 2 different years.
It's expensive - way more than any mineral I've ever fed unless you can get it cheap out there.
Did the mineral hide the flawed genetics of a pink eye problem?
As a commercial producers, feed the mineral.
As a seedstock provider, sell the pink eye cows.
We don't have a pinkeye problem, only on a very occasional year do we see any. It just so happened that the second year we tried kelp we had the worst outbreak I've seen - I think the year was the difference not the kelp. I was just highlighting the fact that the kelp didn't prevent it which is one of the things its claimed to do.
The first year we used kelp as the sole mineral we had best ever conception rate, no lame cows, no pink eye. The second year we had average conception rates, average# of lame cows, a lot of pinkeye.
I realised then that the weather and type of growing season had a bigger influence on these things than mineral program. It was part of my learning experience that set me on the road to a minimalist mineral program. From the dearest program (straight kelp) to the cheapest (which we use now) there is no appreciable difference in any aspect of cattle performance.
That is the case on our place anyway