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mineral $ per head per year?

J

Justin

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Joined
Mar 2, 2008
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4,785
Location
NW South Dakota
i was reading an article in the Angus Journal on mineral costs, i can't find that article right now so don't quote me, but i think it said that if you are paying for than $5/hd/year on mineral you should look into getting a second opinion concerning your mineral program. i'll admit, i am spending more than $5/hd/year, by quite a ways. :? :oops:

what do you spend?
 
If my math is right, say your mineral costs $800/ton....reasonable? 800 divided by 2000 (pounds) equals a cost of 40 cents per pound. 40 divided by 16 (ounces) equals a cost of .025 per ounce.

If the cattle consume 4 ounces/head/day, the cost is 4 times .025, or 10 cents/head/day mineral cost.

10 cents/head/day times 365 (days/year) equals a yearly cost of $36.50 /head/annually.

If they eat 8 ounces/head/day it runs $73/year.

If they eat only 2 ounces/head/day it costs $18.25/year.

Any number is quite a ways off of the $5/head yearly your "author" suggests....... :roll:
 
Out of pocket $25 a head. But then you need to figure the better performance,higher conception rates,less health problems the list goes on and on. Mineral programs seam like they cost alot when you can easily see it going out of pocket but to truly see what it costs you would have to quit it all together then see the results a year later.I bet it would cost more to go without. Some guys go the zero plan and claim there's no differance I can say I've done it and I'll keep feeding mineral.
 
I was talking to a guy last week that decided to quit mineral last summer. 35% open made him decide that wasn't a profitable move.
Dad quit when I came back out on the place, cost cutting to try to make it work with 2 on the place, everything did just fine and we both were thinking mineral was a waste of money until every cow on the place that was 8 or older was wore out. Everyone around us was able to run cows until 10-13 but all ours were done at 8 and some at 7.
 
And you also have to take into account the effect on the calves,meeting i was at yesterday in the five control groups they had the ones with no mineral were 20# lighter then those with mineral,at todays prices that adds up

i have seen my calves as young as a week in the mineral feeder,they dont take much but they take some
 
i'm certainly not questioning the importance of mineral, i would never consider taking it away from my catte. i just thought the $5 was pretty darn low for a cost per year.
 
Who wrote that article, Justin?
They were way off base. Maybe it was an old article...
because mineral took a huge hike when the ingredients
went up. Rule of thumb in our area is mineral cost for the
year equals one bag of mineral, or thereabouts.I think
loomixguy figured it well. And remember, this is
for a COW and her CALF.

Some places cattle eat mineral harder than other places; that's
just a fact of life. And our customers use CTC in the
mineral before and after calving; that adds to the cost,
but it sure helps the labor part because the calves
don't get sick. Mineral really helps the colostrum
quality and that's why the calves start out so vigorous--
and are so healthy. And I really enjoy watching the baby
calves eat the mineral. If they didn't have it, they would
probably eat dirt which leads to ulcers....

We have most of our customers on a lesser phos mineral
in the spring because there is so much phos in the grass
at that time. They usually can stay on it til August when
the grass starts to dry out and lose quality. This has
helped cut the mineral cost per head/per year and it's working
with no noticable negative side effects.

When people first put their herds on our year-round mineral program
they put 30 pounds on their calves. Plus the herd health is
better and so is conception rate. I really enjoy listening to our
customers who get 80-90% bred up in the first heat cycle.

Mineral isn't a cost, it's an investment
that pays back dividends.

If if didn't work, people wouldn't use it. Bottom line. I'd hate
to go back to the problems we had before we were on a mineral
program. We would quit the business first, because we had so
many problems for 8 years. No one knew what was wrong, until
the Vigortone area manager came out. He knew immediately.
We had classic copper deficiency. We had even moved from
W. Montana to SE Montana to try to end the problem. Of course
it didn't and we had the same trouble the first calving season
in SE Montana. After being on the mineral program, we have
ceased giving many shots,and no scour shots at all. Life
was much, much better, as we were ready to throw in the towel.
It got so if we bought a small bottle of antibiotic, we usually
threw it away because of being outdated.
 
I find the weather , and area you live makes quite a difference. where I grew up we never fed much mineral, cows performed well. I moved 2 hours north tried the same program had all kinds of problems. I now test feed and it varies quite a bit year to year. Depends on how wet or dry it is. when I lived in the south I rode a large comunity pasture all in one block. One area of that pasture cows consumed 3 times the mineral and salt then the rest of the pasture. To answer your question, I pay much more than 5$.
 
That's certainly in the ball park, Justin. And that is just a bit more
than the price of a bag of mineral, depending on the product you
use and the freight. I think your freight is less than ours in SE Montana.

Western Range mineral that was designed for SE Montana based
on area grass samples is the most popular mineral in our area. Are you
aware of that formula? The next best seller for us is 3V4S.

I asked who wrote the article because I read some bogus articles
written by Heather-Smith Thomas. After reading about her having
so many problems, I finally called her (several years ago) and asked if she fed mineral.

She didn't. Wasn't even aware they were available...
 
Doug Thorson said:
I was talking to a guy last week that decided to quit mineral last summer. 35% open made him decide that wasn't a profitable move.
Dad quit when I came back out on the place, cost cutting to try to make it work with 2 on the place, everything did just fine and we both were thinking mineral was a waste of money until every cow on the place that was 8 or older was wore out. Everyone around us was able to run cows until 10-13 but all ours were done at 8 and some at 7.
Click to expand...

We have one group of cows that absolutely will not eat mineral once they hit pasture. Does not matter what you put out for them. This group runs in swampy ground. Once we take them off, they are mineral hungry. We preg checked them before coming off the pasture, we had 4 out of 106 head open. Just goes to show me that if they don't eat it, they don't need it.

Not saying mineral is bad, but it is not the only answer also.
 
You see that lots up in this country too-ranches that feed alot of native hay from the meadows rarely feed any mineral. Most get by performance wise on just TM salt. One outfit got written up in Cattleman magazine's calving issue last year-they had two malpresentation assists out of 350 head last year so the cattle are obviously strong and healthy at calving-midApril now. Ty and I just had to move our cows away from a dugout-it's raining up here and about two inches of water sitting on the ice. Not normally a northern Saskatchewan early February problem-it was -40 four days ago-somewhere in the middle would be nice.
 
My cattle in SW Oklahoma will not eat mineral either. No matter the brand or blocks or loose.

The only thing they do is lick a salt block.

Calving % is fine, ect...

Spending more money is not always the answer.
 
I'm blown away by some of these responses. I haven't sat down to figure out actual mineral cost last year but my ballpark over the entire herd would be $4/head. I couldn't believe feeding $30+ a head on mineral. On just the cows alone, that is more than what it costs me for all my colored fuel for a year.
 
Spending 30-40 per year sure can't help the bottom line too much. I might try to run more locally adapted cattle.
 
Some areas do not need to worry about mineral but unfortunately I am in a selenium and copper free area? Had a local feed lot having pasterella challenges and they knew the animals were vacinated to protocol but vaccine was not working. They pulled blood and tissue samples on a bunch of cattle and found they had very little selenium or copper in their systems. They require all animals to fed a balance mineral ration and boostered will selenium at weaning. Had a producer with scours and other health issues in his calfs. After loosing a dozen or so plus treating a good percentage of the others and paying for necropsies. It was decided that his cattle were severely lacking in selenium and copper. The lost calves or vet bill would have more than paid for the mineral needs that year.

Trace mineral salts will not replace a good mineral formulated for your area. The cost of feeding mineral in my area is money well spent. If the cows will not eat the mineral then it is worthless and money wasted. I spent around 18 to 20 dollars per cow/calf per year. I use a special blended mineral with max selenium, elevated copper and a zinc vitamen product called zinpro.
 
Page 54 of the Angus Beef Bulletin has the article by Troy Smith about minerals. Justin was off just a little but what's new about that? :lol: :wink: The author actually says "if you are spending over $15 to $20 a head per year on mineral you might want to get a second opinion. It is possible to meet a cows requirements and keep mineral costa as low as $5 a head. It depends on the mineral content of your feed supply-- the forage and any protien supplements."

Our country is high in pretty much all the minerals across the board. We use trace mineral salt blocks all spring, summer and fall. While I have been told that is impossible we have a great breedback %, no problems with minerals related issues and routinely keep cows into their mid teens. We do give them a mineral tub from Puriena when they go home in Dec/Jan. They seem to hit it hard for a week and then quit. It works here. Do what works for you. :D
 
my only get mineral when we start feeding hay into Late May when they stop eating it, since buy direst from the mill figures out to $9-$10/ head / year.... we stopped 3k/c vaccination on the cows and the calves hit the minreal too and haven't seen any purpel gut with the loss od snow cover that we usually have
 
MSU has done numerous studies about mineral and the advantages of
feeding it in Montana. Most of the state is short of copper and zinc.
Some researchers have said that you only need to feed mineral 6 months out of the year. A person can do that, but we've found they eat as much
in 6 months as they do in a year. They (cattle) try to keep their liver stores up and it takes a certain amount of copper, etc. to do this. Letting
cattle have access to minera onlyl part
of the year will deplete their liver stores. So they will overeat it if they haven't had access to it for awhile.

As far as cattle knowing if they need mineral or not, that's just not true.
Other factors enter into mineral consumption. Quality and quantity of
forage is the first rule of mineral.Good forage will cut down on the
amount of mineral cattle eat, and with poor forage they will eat more.
Also, alkali pastures,gumbo ground, sodium in water--
things like these make a difference in consumption. Lots of phos in
pastures in the spring time makes a difference too. Phos is a limiter,
like salt and cattle will not overeat phosphorus.

Ranchers like it when their vet bill is low or non-existant; their
calves weigh more and their breed up is great. That's what you
get when you are on a year-round mineral PROGRAM.
 

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