What suckler pre- calver minerals are ye using?

Dunedin

just wondering what most farmers are using.

I used the yellow life line buckets for the pst couple of years. I found them good but expensive as teh cows went thro' them like water.

I have got a few bags of Immuboost which is a powder to shake on the silage. anyone any experience of it?

Juniorhurler

I'm using Glanbia superchoice pre-calver. I find it cheaper than the lick buckets as you can ration it. Its still not cheap at €21 a bag.

charityboy

Juniorhurler wrote: »

I'm using Glanbia superchoice pre-calver. I find it cheaper than the lick buckets as you can ration it. Its still not cheap at €21 a bag.

when it comes to minerals the first thing to look at is the contents of the bag or bucket then look at price massive variations between different brands , minerals = money well spent ,dont skimp over a couple of euro :cool:

Tora Bora

charityboy wrote: »

when it comes to minerals the first thing to look at is the contents of the bag or bucket then look at price massive variations between different brands , minerals = money well spent ,dont skimp over a couple of euro :cool:

If I live to be a thousand, I'll never get my head around this mineral craic for cows or cattle. If they cannot survive and thrive on decent quality fodder plus a dash of meals to the appropriate stock types they belong only on an abbatoir hook in my opinion. Assuming of course they are properly dosed and so on. These things I always think are snake oil peddled by the pharma companies to rip the last few bob out if our pockets.

blue5000

Don't agree Torabora, If you are lucky enough to be farming on good soil that has no deficiences, and not too heavily stocked you might get away with it.

But if soil is deficient or has something eg copper locked up then cattle will need supplementation.

cattle man

using lifeline minerals and seem to be workin well.
also used the allsure cattle boluses and no precalver mineral and found them a great job with cows calving and cleaning well and also holdin to a.i. very well.

not really related but also used the lifeline ewe and lamb mineral bucket and had great sucees with very lively lambs

great job..

Bizzum

We use for convenience the Lifeline buckets, and where we can the bags of pre-calver, Eg. Glanbia.
I took to dose the cows with Grovite Forte on and off several years ago and formed the opinion that the calves showed more vigor.
I do think mineral supplementation is important.

htobee

Hi all, we have 25 suckler cows, limx and simx and all calving to AI bb bulls. Our vet told us to start using high Iodine all trace bolus approx seven weeks before calving. Once we bolus the cows we don't use anything else in the mineral lines. We've found that the calves are very lively and very keen for sucking pretty much within the first few hours. I've always been worried about bb calves being a bit "dopey" butthis seems to solve that problem. Also the bolus is still working when it's time to serve the cows again, really cuts down on the repeats. The cons are it costs about €14/cow and they need two bolus at the same time so it's a bit of work. My tuppence worth!!

towzer2010

Hi All.

I got easi-trace minerals this year so I dont know how well they will work. They are tablets that are soluble in the water troughs. I bought them in the local CO-Op but I think you can buy direct from mayohealthcare.ie. I always used the Lifeline buckets but I had a lot of problems with cows not keeping last year and both my vet and the AI man suggested it was a mineral problem. Cattle definitely need additional minerals on poorer land especially after the last couple of wet years IMO.