"Jim Webster" wrote in message ...

Lotus wrote in message
...
"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...

Lotus wrote in message
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"Jim Webster" wrote in message
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First we had to get you to
find out what was the difference between a lick and a block.

There is no difference. A mineral/salt lick and a mineralised block
are, for all intents and purposes, the same thing.

no, because a mineral salt lick will not contain protein

And a mineralised block will?

Again, search results for mineralised + block + protein isn't
yielding a tin shilling.

forget it, because I cannot be bothered wading through you two slagging
each other off I am not bothering downloading this thread any more as
most of it is just noise.

Hitherto, most of it coming from you. Anyway, sorted.

But just to explain in short sentences a mineralised feed block may well
contain protein which could well be part of the whole BSE/MBM problem.

But suckler herds had lower incidence of BSE than dairy herds, not more.

A mineral salt lick will not.

Fine. This whole topic mineralised and feed lick/blocks is in
any case redundant, the argument has moved on, see below.

---repost---
J.W;
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).

That is -exactly- what we needed to know.

'2.8 Dairy herds were far more affected by BSE than beef herds.
The recorded incidence among dairy herds between 1 April 1985
and 31 March 1988 was 311 out of 44,767 herds (0.69 per cent),
considerably higher than the incidence in beef suckler herds
(11 out of 54,166 herds, or 0.02 per cent). 9 This was probably due
to the lower levels of concentrate feeding in beef suckler herds, 10 '
http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/report/...6/chapter2.htm

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.

(8) Section 4.8.3.2 ( page 36)
"FURTHERMORE, BEEF COWS WHICH OBTAIN MOST OF
THEIR FOOD FROM PASTURE , ARE MORE LIKELY THAN
DAIRY COWS TO EXPERIENCE AN ABNORMAL IMBALANCE
IN DIETARY INTAKE OF THE TRACE ELEMENTS COPPER,
MOLYBDENUM, SELENIUM AND MANGANESE, SINCE
COMPOUND FEEDS FOR DAIRY COWS ARE SUPPLEMENTED
WITH THESE TRACE ELEMENTS AS NECESSARY TO MEET
NUTRIENT REQUIREMENTS. ACCORDINGLY, A HIGHER
INCIDENCE OF BSE WOULD BE EXPECTED IN BEEF COWS
RATHER THAN IN DAIRY COWS. THE REVERSE IS TRUE."
http://www.purdeyenvironment.com/Horne.htm
Capitalised for EMPHASIS only.

You say;

and MBM has a better match

What in MBM exactly?

Phosmet - Prions - Manganese - Fat - ?

Lotus wrote in message
...
"Jim Webster" wrote in message
news:aurghf$eb6

But just to explain in short sentences a mineralised feed block may
well
contain protein which could well be part of the whole BSE/MBM
problem.

But suckler herds had lower incidence of BSE than dairy herds, not
more.

exactly.
Remember where beef cows come from.
The vast majority of UK beef cows are daughters of dairy cows and are
born and often reared on dairy farms. In this we differ entirely from
the USA.
Therefore most beef cows, as calves, will have drunk milk replacer or
eaten propriatory calf rations. A high proportion of beef cows were
reared under conditions almost entirely the same as replacement dairy
heifers.
The difference in rates of BSE between beef and dairy cattle is easily
enough explained by this proportion. This is especially true as if you
look at the map of BSE incidence in the UK, beef herd replacement
animals will be (by chance) drawn from the areas where BSE incidence is
lower in the local dairy herd.

Remember that a lot of farmers who had BSE in their dairy herds did not
feed a compound feed to adult cattle and certainly never bought MBM.
They also never used a warble dressing on animals who went down with
BSE.
But virtually all would have used a commercial ration on calves, because
young animals need more careful feeding and tend to be looked after
better, as they cannot balance out their feed with grazing. It is
probable that a lot of milk powder feeds contained MBM, as a calf is
built to eat animal protein, and it is undoubtedly probable that a lot
of the calf rearing rations contained high quality animal protein
(because, again, calves to need high quality animal protein and respond
to it.)

So you do not need to worry too much about the diets of adult cattle and
BSE. After all many of the animals that went down with BSE had never
been exposed to MBM as adult cattle and they had obviously never been
exposed to Organophosphates.

Everything is more reasonably explained by the animal being infected in
the first twelve weeks of life.

--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

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