Lotus wrote in message
...

I can't find a SINGLE reference to the use of mineralised
FEED blocks in the UK.

now that's tough because I've seen them stacked up to the roof in
many
feed merchants.

Someone was thoughtful enough to find a supplier of
mineralised supplementary feed licks for cattle
http://www.ccfarmers.co.uk/feed.asp , but that's still
a lick. I see Dry Cow Feed Blocks on the same page,
but are they blocks of mineralised feed like Michael
showed us ;
http://www.martindalefeed.com/Products/BLOCKS/3307.htm
and are these given to suckler herds in the UK?

some suckler cows in the UK will have access to some thing similar. (to
save people wasting time going on line, it is a US firm producing for
their market. The ingredients are
INGREDIENTS
Defluorinated phosphate, salt, grain products, cane molasses, magnesium
oxide, vegetable oil, ferrous oxide, manganese sulfate, calcium
carbonate, zinc sulfate, sodium selenite, ferrous sulfate, potassium
chloride, ethylenediamine dihydriodide, cobalt carbonate)

I got a thing though the post this morning from Pye farm feeds selling
something similar, but they call theirs buckets. This is because they
pour the mix into plastic bucket rather than a mould. It means you can
use a higher proportion of molasses.
These products are basically grain and molasses based, although some
will contain a protein source as well. Depending on what the block is
wanted for it will contain more or less of various minerals.
Those for out wintering beef cows might well contain more calcium, those
fed at calving could well contain more magnesium. Calcium:Phosphorus
ration will vary as well.

As I said some beef cows in the UK will have access to that sort of
thing, others might get a compound feed instead, others a straight such
as maizs gluten, others might get nothing but silage or hay. It will
depend entirely on how the animal is wintered, the sort of condition it
was in prior to housing (or prior to commencing feeding).

Blocks is just one more possibility in the ration. I know people who
have used them for rearing dairy heifers, and there are blocks available
formulated for dry cows, or even for use in the milking parlour when
animals are on complete diet regimes.



--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'