Multi-Min

Got the big sales pitch from a Nutritionist from South Africa last night.  Has anybody on the board used Multi-Min? 

Any thoughts or opinions would be helpful.

cowz said:

Got the big sales pitch from a Nutritionist from South Africa last night.  Has anybody on the board used Multi-Min? 

Any thoughts or opinions would be helpful.

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The big benefit fot Multi-min goes to the people who sell it. Cattle, esp beef cattlem,  with adequate feed and supplemental oral mineral do not need injectable trace minerals. The primary exception to that statement would be providing selenium to baby calves in selenium deficient areas (in the form of BoSe). In general, if they can get it orally they don't need it injected. FWIW 

We tried it this spring for the first time. We gave all the cows that had calved a shot of it about 6 weeks before AI/ET and turning out with the bulls. Our thoughts were to give them every chance to do well (even with our good mineral program) and then if something doesn't perform, well they have no excuse. We won't know until next spring how our conception rates turned out but so far things look very promising. The one benefit that it has over oral minerals is that you never really know who is getting too much or not enough free choice mineral. There may be individuals that never take a lick of it and with the injectable multi-min, you do know. If our conception rates improved, we will definitely use it again.

You CAN feed to much trace minerals..

I agree.  We offer free choice mineral our commercial cows. Excess minerals and vitamins are usually excreted.  My fear is the injecting into the system could cause liver problems if the individual did not have a need for the mineral.  I guess I am a little leary of this concept.

Multi min works great on show calves that are poppin in their pasturns. The only thing i have against it as an injectible is that it tends to swell quite a bit at injection site

Give 5cc IM to your recips @4weeks prior to putting in embryos and see if it dosen't work. 90% conception over the last four years on recips nursing 45-90 day old calves in the winter. IT WORKS

Not sure if multi min is available in Canada or not. If it isn't where in the US can I buy this miracle stuff? If it works that good with recips, I would like to try it.

A.P. - how many recips are you talking about each year when you say 90% over 4 years. It could make a difference if you are talking about 5 or 50.

I too, am a bit cautious about injecting trace minerals, as too much of some trace minerals is even worse than not enough. But if there is enough proof that this stuff works and is not just snake oil, I would give it a try.

JIT - if you hear rustling in the grass it is a well oiled snake ;D

It is only available thru a vet according to a rep.  So we called our vet, gave him the ordering info and he had it in about 2 days.

JIT  We don't do many 87 over the last four years. We have a program that works well for us. We get our cows on an eleveated nutrition plane prior to implanting.  We feed a common 12-12 mineral year round. then four weeks out we give the multi min shot. We also give a bovi drop which is a ADE bolus. I don't know if it one thing making the results so good or if it is a combination of all of them. We also use red angus and red angus cross cows between 4-9 years old so these cattle are also very fertile. Hope this helps.

Thanks AP... sounds like whatever you are doing is working good for you.I don't think I would be changing anything as your results are about as good as it gets.I have seen great one year stats on embryo pregnancies but when you can consistently do this year after year, you have to be doing a bunch of things right.Seven years ago I got 17 pregnancies from 18 embryos implanted, however my success rate has been quite radical, even though, if anything, the nutritional levels of the recips has been better. I am ultrasounding 37 recips and about 45 other cows and heifers tomorrow. Hope to be able to sex most of the calves as well, so it should be an interesting day. I think we had pretty good luck with pregnancies from embryos this year, and I don't want to jinx myself, but from the heats I have noticed, we might be around 82%... will know a lot more tomorrow!