Feeding Mineral All Year Round

It’s easy to think about feeding mineral during breeding season. Some people also think about it before calving. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to forget about the needs of your herd during the rest of the year. Maybe it’s because other tasks are prioritized ahead of putting out mineral. You’ve got to get your bulls tested. Those heifers need to be synced for that expensive semen you bought. The calves need to get their first round of vaccinations. The cows need to be preg-checked.

There is just one problem with that prioritization scheme: All four of those other tasks, along with basically everything else that happens with a live animal on your operation, are heavily reliant on mineral and vitamin nutrition to get the best results.

Mineral Prevents Issues

Every chemical reaction in the body relies on at least one vitamin or mineral in some form or fashion. For instance, hoof health has garnered some attention in the last few years, thanks to hairy heel wart and other ailments. Like our fingernails, hooves are made of keratin; and zinc is one of the critical components of keratin. If your animals have a hoof-related issue, its genesis could go back months to either a deficiency or an antagonism of zinc. The largest immune tissue in the body -- skin -- also has a high zinc requirement. And while we're at it, hair is also made of keratin. So if you want your cattle to be slick and shiny, zinc is necessary there too.

Zinc is just one example off an almost endless list. Selenium is necessary for good sperm development so that sperm don’t end up with bent tails (or no tails at all). Sperm with deficient tails are going to have a hard time fertilizing the egg. Magnesium and calcium are needed for proper muscle contractions (think grass tetany or milk fever). Entire books have been written about how just one mineral or vitamin affects some aspect of your animals’ lives that, in turn, heavily affects your checkbook.

Feeding Mineral Year-Round

We’ve established that these reactions need vitamins and minerals, but also consider the fact that these reactions happen every day. Conception only happens once a year (if you’re lucky and plan well), but hoof and hair growth, proper muscle contractions, and immune function all happen every day. If you're planning to have a cow that raises a calf every year, that means that all of those other biochemical reactions have to happen on time. A cow never gets a day off, and neither does her body. So it’s up to us to make sure that she has all the necessary nutrients in the correct amounts when she needs them to do that job for us.

If she doesn’t get a vacation, then neither should your mineral feeder. And if you need recommendations on a solid mineral supplementation program, our team is standing by to help. Call or stop in anytime!

NOTE: This post is adapted (with permission) from content proudly brought to you by our partners at Nutrena and Cargill Animal Nutrition. The original article appears here.