When it comes to a mineral supplement people tend to focus only on either spring or fall. During these times of the year, cattle go through their highest demands. But just because that is the case doesn’t mean that you should neglect your cows’ mineral needs during the rest of the year.
With summer being the breeding season for most people making sure that your cattle are meeting their mineral requirements is important here too. Studies have shown that cattle that are deficient in minerals are less likely to breed back on time, or at all. So don’t you think it is important that their needs are met?
Summer is what you may call a “transitioning” period. Grasses during this time are starting to mature and move into their seeding stage. As they mature their nutritional value also decreases. As I mentioned it also being breeding season your cow’s nutritional needs are increasing during this time.
So how can you make the most impact with your mineral supplementation? Here are 3 tips that you can follow:
A protein tub is a very good way to provide extra nutrition when needed. One benefit is that once you have placed it in the pasture you don’t need to check it every day. This is helpful for those that may have a job back in town.
Using a mineral supplement is one of the most important yet overlooked parts of cattle management. Sure, we all are concerned with the amount of protein or energy they are getting but what about meeting their mineral needs?
Providing feed supplements to cattle grazing in certain areas is pretty common and for good reason. Cattle are often not able to get enough nutrients from just rangelands to meet their nutritional requirements. Producers have many choices when it comes to feeding supplements.
When it comes to ruminant nutrition most people think of things like crude protein, energy, and possibly mineral content. Although these factors are important, roughage intake can often be overlooked. A minimum amount of roughage is important to keep the rumen functioning as it should.
Creep feeding can be a very useful tool for producers raising young calves. Using this tool can both improve your overall bottom line as well as your profitability. Not to mention also helping calves in being more productive.
Salt blocks are available to producers in a variety of different colors. This is something any trip to your local feed store can tell you. Each color represents different things about it.
A feed tag is a very informative but often overlooked item on a commercially produced feed. Other than looking at the Crude protein or maybe the energy content not many people really look at them. With some of the confusing numbers and such listed on them, it is understandable how that can happen.
Many producers out there unknowingly sabotage their mineral program by providing sulfur salt blocks to their cattle in the pasture. The general way of thinking in providing this is that it is for the purpose for external parasite control. The trouble with this is that although applied externally has shown to do this somewhat. As far as I have been able to find there is no proof that ingesting it does this.
