Today in Pictures

[Blaithin]

They were enjoying the misty day today. Rain lowered the mosquito numbers so can’t blame them ????

[GDR]

I didn’t get a vet out, basically the vet charged an hour at the clinic, I’m not sure what an hour is worth, drawing blood isn’t a big deal but five tiny liver samples from each cow would definitely be something I’m not ready for, basically take in a handful of cows and if they are all deathly low on copper they all will be low. basically a closed heard and calving 6 months of year is playing me out, a little more than 30 more to calve out, the weird thing is a bunch of the cows bag up and loosen up and it all goes away and four months later she calves, hormones are still out of place and a major copper deficiency won’t be fixed quickly. I find it interesting that the cows are high in selenium, they shouldn’t be, I don’t know if it was the co-op minerals or not.

Sorry you are having problems TSIPP, perhaps not to your extent but we've had herd level issues over the years too, relating to health or nutrition. Takes a while to recover and is high stress wondering if you are really under control again or not.

Watch your high selenium, if you are pushing mineral for copper and get too high of selenium you might create your next disaster. Both copper and selenium are tough because the extremes cause pretty well the same symptoms. We have sheep and cattle, both require copper but sheep are very susceptible to copper toxicity so you don't let them have cattle mineral and feed mills won't add enough copper to their minerals for fear of overdose, twice now we ended up in a copper deficiency situation in the sheep. Multiple symptoms but the most visible was a lamb ready to go to market, seemingly happy but any stress from being chased or loaded and they would fall down paralyzed and never walk again (weak synapses in the spinal column at the base of the neck, happened during pregnancy not something that could be corrected in the live lamb) The sheep we have worked through problems a few times and got over them, we had a cow issue one time and liquidated 40 cows and then tried to replace them with breds, not sure what's best.

I generally use store bought minerals because it's easy, I wouldn't think most minerals would go bad but vitamins actually don't have a very long shelf life, who knows how long those bags have been siting in the warehouse. If you are having issues I'd really look at a custom mineral blend for your farm. Blue Rock Animal Nutrition at Innisfail does that. They test your feed and make what your herd needs. (likely others around also)

[TSIPP]

This cargill mineral was packaged in April and I should be going through a bag a day, I’m not sure they are eating a bag a week, basically a mineral tub or two at every watering hole, with more than a dozen tubs it’s kind hard to keep track but if I take three bags out a week the tubs are full and I don’t need to take any more out, the cows won’t come to grain in the summer or won’t come consistently, I’ll get a custom mix this winter.

if cows were easy everyone would have them.

[TSIPP]

Did the math again, I should be putting out almost 2 bags per day, probably should be posting in the beef section but not much activity up at the top.

[Blaithin]

I was going to suggest getting a bag of copper from that company that does each mineral individually on the premises the cows know what they need.

But they can't sell or ship to Canada so that's out.

[TSIPP]

I just looked and I bought the pallet of mineral a day before Father’s Day, 40 bags and 20 still on the pallet and I’m guessing that half of what I put out is still in the tubs, I better get ahold of my mineral guy an get something more palatable, it’s the same stuff as I used last year but has almost double the copper, maybe the cows are caught up but I doubt it, it does get frustrating, some years 4 salt blocks is enough and some years 40 salt blocks aren’t enough, cows are hardly touching salt this year.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Could you have mineral added to Promolas and then regulate the uptake by changing the sweetness of the promolas? And use that year around? Could also use that to inject bales

There are advantages to turning the bulls out at the same time the cows go out to pasture. Those few months prior to reading or when they need the most minerals. At least you have options to force feed mineral while feeding cows. Not many options once they're out on grass.

[TSIPP]

I’ll definitely look into the promolas, buying mineral works only if the cows are eating it. I’ll be honest, I’ve asked a few neighbours and it’s really hard getting a straight answer.

[furrowtickler]

Extremely interesting to read this conversation from the background
learning a lot I never knew
thank all of you , good info for me to learn

[furrowtickler]

Very impressed with the knowledge of those who actually do the work