Minerals

[Maccbob]

At last got my first Dexters, a 3 year old cow with heifer calf at foot and in calf for next year and 2 x 15 month old heifers to grow on for the freezer next year? another 2 x cows with calves at foot on the way when the bull has done his business. At the moment they have plenty of grass to go at after making hay a couple of months ago Do I need to supplement this with a general purpose mineral lick like the one below or not. Your comments would be appreciated.

MASSEY GENERAL PURPOSE
For dairy cows, replacements, suckler cows, semi-intensive beef and young stock:
■ Balanced levels of Phosphorous, magnesium, calcium & salt
■ Improved levels of copper & salt
■ Increased levels of selenium

[ann]

Hello and welcome to the dexter club, they are contagious so I hope you have plenty of land

You certainly need a mineral lick in with them as the grass will be losing some of its nutrition and with all the cold wet weather we have been having your cows could be prone to magnisum deficiency. So go for one with a reasonable high magnisum content.

[Broomcroft]

You want licks specifically for this time of year with high mag content. However, we've found that some of the licks very high in mag don't get licked very much because they taste bitter. A good bet as well is high mag feed blocks like Rumevite. We're using Rumevite Mag Booster blocks and we also chuck mag flakes into the water troughs just in case some cows don't lick at all.

[Tim Watson]

We don't use any licks at all but we do feed then Suckler Cow Rolls every night and have found its a good way to train them to follow the bucket etc and to get them used to you if they are new to you. You can also make sure they are all getting them.

[domsmith]

I would recommend crystalix hi mag green tub. we leave them out autumn through the winter until the summer. they seem to like them.
if its a small herd a few of the suckler rolls in a bucket is very good to keep them tame.

welcome to Dexters

dom

[Rob R]

I would recommend crystalix hi mag green tub. we leave them out autumn through the winter until the summer. they seem to like them.
if its a small herd a few of the suckler rolls in a bucket is very good to keep them tame.

welcome to Dexters

dom

I'll second the above advice - they are grain & soya free too.

[strawberriesclint]

Hi all

Can i just say please be carefull of putting bucket licks down as they normally contain high levels of mollasess which badgers adore and therefore its not just the cows that end up licking them. We get calsea blocks from mole valley that are seaweed based and we have found cows prefere them to the mollasessed based licks and we normally put a rope through the hole in the middle and tether up high out of bagders reach.

cyndy

[ann]

if its a small herd a few of the suckler rolls in a bucket is very good to keep them tame.

these are quite often mentioned on the board but they are not something I have come across, who makes them please.

[davidw]

I've also tried to buy Suckler Rolls, but my local feed merchant claims they have never heard of them. I've also tried to get a stand to lift mineral licks up to deter badgers, but the only ones I've found are 1 metre high which isn't a lot of use for Dexters.

[Saffy]

You can get suckler cow rolls from Mole Valley Farmers. Although based in Devon, there are now outlets in many parts of the country and reps where there aren't outlets, my local rep drops me 10bags out of the boot of his car! Brilliant service!!!

[Broomcroft]

We do all or some of the following depending on what we've got and where the cattle are:

• Rumevite Mag Booster feed blocks (cattle and sheep)
  Supalyx Cattle licks (yellow buckets) .. note our cattle will not touch the dark blue high mag versions, so not much point in putting them out if they're not going to get licked!
  Mag flakes thrown into the water troughs, guaranteed cheap uptake of mag unless they aren't drinking, which is rare but has just happen here as grass is soooooo wet (available from Wynnstay, Hodges & Moss, probably Mole Valley Farmers?)
  Cattle mineralised molasses poured onto their hay/silage (hard to get hold of IME)
  General cattle feed with mag in.

If in the field, we tend to put them near the centre hopefully making it a bit scarier for badgers. Instead of being close to the hedge or water trough. Haven't got a clue whether that works!

Also, always have a large needle / large syringe and a bottle of MagniJect ready for immediate action should you find a cow on her side.

[Saffy]

I believe that if you have galvanised water troughs that the mag reacts with the galv and then the mag is no longer useful, so please if this is what you intend to rely on and have galv tanks please check with an expert, I did and that was what I was told.

It isn't always a cow, I had a heifer calf this year, a big shock I did wonder if it really was mag def but fair play gave her the injection and up she got and walked away - whew! She wasn't very keen on the Mag Rolls at the time, I have made sure she eats them since.

Stephanie

[Broomcroft]

I think with mag and galvanised tanks Stephanie, at least in the ratio I have cattle to tank size, each tank is emptied a number of times a day, so I'd guess (and it is just a guess) that the mag would remain intact.

With sheep though, or a small bunch of cattle and a big tank, obviously the water's going to be in there for a long time, so would have thought that's where the problems may occur???