Boosting trace minerals will boost beef profits, says vet

Dr Bob Gentry is technical services veterinarian with Multimin USA which markets Multimin, an injectible source of zinc, manganese, copper and selenium.

Multimin is available in Australia through animal health company, Virbac.

Dr Gentry said maintaining key trace minerals had become critically important as producers sought to lift the performance of their herds.

Trace minerals were essential for optimal health, production and fertility, he said.

They improved the animal’s immune system and reproductive performance.

Trace minerals were in big demand by beef animals at high-stress times like joining, calving, marking and weaning.

Producers should be aware that milk doesn’t contain trace minerals, he said.

“Large stores of trace minerals are transferred to calves during pregnancy,” he said. 

But thereafter their levels of trace minerals needed to be maintained.

Dr Gentry comes from Kansas where cattle outnumber people by about three to one.

He said a healthy calf started at conception. Cows with optimal levels of trace minerals were likely to be more fertile, have faster growing embryos and calve early in the breeding season.

Higher numbers of early calves produced more beef at weaning time and more dollars in producers’ pockets.

Dr Gentry said a high percentage of orally-ingested trace minerals “went out the back end” while take-up in the rumen could be severely disrupted by “antagonists” such as iron, calcium and sulphur.

These antagonists tied up trace minerals, he said.

“Sulphur ties up everything and damages vitamin A and B,” he said.  

The rumen was also notoriously slow in the uptake of trace minerals, a process which typically took weeks.

He said the advantage of an injection of Multimin was that the trace minerals bypassed the rumen and were stored in the liver within 24 hours.

“Use (it) at times of low uptake and high demand,” he said.

Some cows also won’t eat trace mineral supplements which was another problem for producers.