By Mary Drewnoski and Jesse Fulton
Free-choice mineral is a common part of cow-calf management, but selecting the right product can be challenging. Forage mineral concentration, stage of production, mineral intake, and interactions among minerals all affect whether cattle are likely to meet their needs.
To help producers work through those decisions, Nebraska Extension has developed a new mineral calculator tool with funding from NCR-SARE and the Iowa Beef Industry Council. The calculator is designed to help producers evaluate free-choice mineral products in relation to cattle requirements and the mineral contribution from forage and other feed sources.
The mineral calculator and related resources can be found at https://go.unl.edu/minerals
Why the Mineral Calculator Can Help
Mineral decisions are not always straightforward. One of the major challenges with evaluating a mineral program is that cattle mineral requirements are expressed as a concentration in the total diet. However, a free-choice mineral mix is only a small fraction of what the animal consumes each day. This makes it difficult to look at a requirement, look at a mineral tag, and know whether the product is actually filling the gap. The mineral calculator is designed to overcome this barrier. In addition, some minerals interact with one another. This means that looking only at the concentration of one mineral may not accurately reflect what the animal can use. The calculator is designed to account for some of the common mineral interactions that influence mineral availability.
Source : unl.edu