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Interesting Conversation!!!

N

Northern Rancher

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Feb 10, 2005
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Location
saskatchewan
went down to the neighbors fopr tea this A'M-they run Hereford/Gelbvieh cross cows and calve in Feb./March-our places are dead similar were only a mile apart-they have a real good outfit no health troubles etc. When I asked what mineral they used she told me they'd never fed a bag in their life-we've ranched side by side for 75 years. My Dad never fed any either-just blue salt and we got along fine-makes me wonder if it really is necessary-their son is a mile or so furthur down the road and like me feeds mineral pretty steady. Maybe it's these frail Angus cattle that need supplementing-it makes you wonderour old Charcross cows thrived on blue salt and they were calving in Jan./Feb.
 
You would have to go back through your records. How much sickness did you have? How long did your cows last? How old did they live to be? How was your conception rates, how many calves did you get in the first heat cycle? What did your calves weigh?

I can guarantee you that people have seen amazing results by feeding mineral. Not always and not very often do your neighbors tell you everything.

The university studies show our country and all of Montana is short of trace minerals. Maybe your country is different.

If the results of feeding mineral didn't show it was necessary, no one around here would feed it.
 
Well I've never twisted numbers for them but I do know they've made a living off their cows for three generations-I've never seen a production wreck there yet either. I just thought it was interesting anecdotal evidance.
 
my father in law is a firm believe in the ag school ranching program. it is simple to follow..... everytime the ag schools come out with a new theory or program, ignore it and continue with what works on your farm.

those guys are trying to improve the cattle industry, but the FIRST thing on thier mind is keeping that job, and the only way to do that is to keep changing ideas and experimenting with crap most guys wouldn't do anyway.
 
My cattle pasture on native short grass(swamp) in the summer and WILL NOT eat any mineral during that time. I give them trace mineralized salt,which they will eat.
In the winter they will only eat mineral if I am feeding alfalfa or silage. If they get any native hay, at all ,they won't touch the mineral.
I realize that this isn't very "scientific", but I think it is obvious that they must be getting their mineral requirements out of that native grass.
That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it!! :wink: :D
 
Dad used to laugh whenever a mineral salesman pulled into the yard, as he could never get the cows to eat any.

I had a guy promise to buy the mineral back plus pay my trucking cost, if I'd try his and they dang sure ate it. Only problem, was paying for it as it wasn't too cheap and they ate alot. I was told if I would just hang tuff' and keep it out, they would eventually get filled up on their missing nutrients and then they would back off. Times were tuff and I ran out of money to spend on mineral before the cows ever backed off on their intake.

If I ever get on a mineral program again, I will have my place tested and find out what we are missing and feed them that.

I read that whenever you use the shotgun approach with mineral, you are spending money on minerals you don't need and are probably underfeeding the minerals you do need.

I guess these ol' longhorns are tuff, as they seem to do pretty good, just getting mineral once in awhile. :wink:

OK Fh, let er rip! :lol:
 
We've had problems for years with mineral consumption; usually very sporadic and lots of times practically none. Whenever we'd find a mineral that seemed to work we'd go back to get more and they'd either be out or have a different formulation and we'd be back to square one! :mad: We started the herd in December on Cargill's Right Now mineral program and our consumption has stayed constant at 2-2.5 oz. daily per cow. We are just into calving,and the calves are being born vigorous and healthy and the cows are cleaning well. We'll stick with the right now program for now and see what results we get out of the breeding fields. BTW I tried some Vigortone and the consumption was good but the hassle of getting it up here is just too much!
As to actually needing mineral supplementation I feel that we expect a lot more production value out of our cows today than ever before and the cow's basic nutritional needs must be met to achieve production goals!
 
I was out in the tractor with my DH. He said the reason we feed supplements are because of low magnesium. I think there's a case in point of discovering what if anything your cows need.

You know there's a whole industry that makes its money off the ill-informed. People take expensive multivitamins, when alot of times all they need are one or two keys vitamins.

Anyway there's my little bit of naive wisdom, or some such nonsense.
 
I could not imagine not being on a mineral program as it would be a complete wreck. I can still remember having 10% lumps on our open yearling heifers. We switched our supplement formulation and have not had one single lump on a yearling in 4+ years. If you are fortunate enough to not need any mineral consider yourself lucky.
 
Well to be honest I've had more trouble since I adopted state of the art vaccination protocols and by the book supplementation maybe the old man wasn't so damned dumb after all. Cowzilla most of those really big bucks winter on jackpine moss in the winter-maybe a guy could feed test that. I just assumed those neighbors fed mineral-they have pretty high production cattle lots of 7-8 weight calves in the fall.
 
Faster Horses gets me to worrying about an imminent wreck sometimes, but really I am not too concerned. I think we could pick up an occasional bred cow, or a few more pounds of calf by feeding mineral, but the dollars just don't pencil for us. We got 94 and some % of our cows bred in a 48 day breeding season last summer. The due date is not till Monday,if you go by the book, but they are calving like crazy at the moment.

I think good mineral would never be a bad thing, but you have to look at what is working and what pays for itself, and go from there.

The whole picture of the way you run everything on your ranch has a lot to do with it too. Example- time of calving, rotational grazing, water quality, etc.

I will never argue with Faster Horses knowledge, as I cannot call her on one thing she has posted about nutrition, but mineral just does not seem to be needed on our cows that are 4 years of age and older.
 
NR: If you are using a ML vaccine on your home raised calves you are probably not doing yourself any favors. Like I said before go with what works for your operation. We have less sickness and health problems now than we ever have including the years were we never vaccinated for any of the shipping fever viruses.


I believe Faster Horses claims because I have seen them and lived them. I will retire from the cattle business before I go back to our old mineral program.
 
Over on the mineral thread I also posted about our neighbor that doesn't feed mineral, barely cakes, and the cows pretty much calve themselves and he had whooping big calves at sale time. Seems to me his cows are doing their job and his profit margin is way better then ours.
 
If you want the same results you have always had do the things you have always done.

But if you want to sell the maximum beef per acre at the lowest cost you need to make sure you are crossing the T's and dotting the I's . As in any other business some get by with the bare minimum of inputs and achieve acceptable results.

On the other hand would you be able to increase your stocking rate by even a small percentage by following a year round mineral program?

One of the largest cattle producers in this area does not preg check and normally has about 8% open cows at calving - - - - this seems to be a great waste to me however he has been in the business about 50 years and feels the labor and cost of preg checking would cost more than a few open cows. I disagree but don't feel it is worth it to argue as he is not going to change. - - - By the way he started feeding a year round mineral program after he was having to many calving problems and it really seemed to help his operation.

If you have all your ground paid for and are nearing the end of your business life you have succeeded and must have done something right. If on the other hand you are trying to build on yesturdays success you need to keep up with technoligy. That is not to say follow every fad that comes out but you need to evaluate advances with an open mind.
 

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