Fall and Winter mineral or supplements

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doubled

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Sep 8, 2007
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As its nearing fall and winter, what supplements or mineral do you all feed your cows in the winter, we had such a harsh winter last year our cows
had a hard time all winter with supplements, we usually have such healthy cows but this last winter was the hardest health wise I can remember,
I do know our hay last year was not near as good as this year. But would like everyones opinion.  We use loose mineral by cargill and molassis tubs.
 

DL

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Jan 29, 2007
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justamom said:
As its nearing fall and winter, what supplements or mineral do you all feed your cows in the winter, we had such a harsh winter last year our cows
had a hard time all winter with supplements, we usually have such healthy cows but this last winter was the hardest health wise I can remember,
I do know our hay last year was not near as good as this year. But would like everyones opinion.  We use loose mineral by cargill and molassis tubs.

Crystalyx Brigade - you can almost feed air and maintain condition and fertility  ;D

I really like Brigade - don't have to mess with loose mineral, cows use the tubs whenever they want, weather doesn't hurt the product - all the trace minerals are there -  cows are healthy and look good, are fertile, calve and clean without problems - no issues with bloat on alfalfa/clover - I should have bought stock!
 

DLD

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sw Oklahoma
We've been really happy with Moormans Mintrate tubs.  They're complete with high quality minerals, and available in various percentages of protein and energy (we'll use 30's until around the first of the year, then switch to 20's w/higher energy).  Condition, conception, weaning weights and overall health all vastly improved for us when we started using them.  Not taking anything away from DL's Crystalyx, just saying these work very well also.
 

Cattle Fan

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Apr 25, 2008
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Those of you that use a loose mineral what are you using for the best results and what is the cost per 50lbs.  We are using a local mineral that we have had good results with but it is starting to get rather pricey.  Just looking for ideas on what has worked for others and what the costs are.
 

CAB

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Corning,Iowa
  What are the approx. cost/day/cow on the tubs, both Crystalix and the Moorman's tubs please. Every time I ever put a pencil to it, it always seems like a few lbs of grain with salt and mineral blocks are hard to compete with. It seems that the prices for the tubs goes up accordingly with the grains. I think that we could get fool also with the quality of hay this year in Ia b/c of all of the rain early.
 

doubled

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I would be interested in the price on both of them, Im not sure where I can get either one of these products here in Iowa???
 

chambero

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Feb 12, 2007
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Texas
We feed the Right Now loose minerals by Cargill.  We put it out sporadically.  I'm not sure what cost is right now, but I know it has gone up a bunch.

My father-in-law is very anti protein tubs, but I wish we'd give them a try.  No luck on convincing on that though.
 

CAB

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  I would love to put out the tubs also, but the problem is that every time I look into it, I can't get a good solid answer as to what the cost/head/day are and if I feed it to them by hand, I can controll the amount and know what the cost is. Plus you have to see them daily and I always count. I know that this is not possible for a bunch of the larger operations, but even when I had a couple hundred head, I wanted to controll feed stuffs, just did it with a feed wagon instead of a bucket. I think also that we all have to remember that the ppl that sell supplements to us, do it as a job. I think they may even have meetings to plan strategies. Brent
 
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