Peter Bowling swears by providing his stock with their essential minerals in his herd’s water supply.IT’S taken a decade, 35 kilometres of pipe and 76 troughs, but King Island cattle producer Peter Bowling is confident he has found the best way to keep his stock in peak condition.
Peter and Yvonne Bowling and their son, Rod, who run 2250 Murray Grey/Angus on their 2000hectare operation, Surprise Bay Pastoral, on the southern end of King Island, are working through a program of providing water and mineral supplements to all their stock through an extensive trough system.
King Island cattle producers have always been aware of mineral deficiencies in their soil and pastures, leaving stock deficient in copper, cobalt, selenium and iodine, and for the Bowlings the way to replace those minerals used to be through two or three injections a year.
“We haven’t injected cattle in five years,” Mr Bowling said.
“Water is the easiest way to get those minerals into them.”
The Bowlings now use MaxiMin from Virbac, a liquid mineral supplement containing 12 essential minerals for sheep and cattle, and purchased in 1000litre skips through Elders Webster.
It is administered through five Norprim units which dispense the MaxiMin out into the trough system at a rate of 2.5ml/animal/day.
“The first 1000 litres lasted 18 months but I think as we now have more cattle on the trough system, this one will probably do us for under 12 months,” Peter Bowling said.
“I think the system is working well; in summer one unit can be responsible for up to 800 or 900 head and we have few problems.”
The Bowlings breed their cattle with the aim of turning them off as bullocks at 355 to 360 kilograms to be sold to the Tasman Group, which has abattoirs on the island killing meat for the local, mainland and export market.
About 80 per cent of heifers are retained as breeders and the culls and empties are sold at 18 months or two years to the Tasman Group.
“Since we’ve had the trough system, I’d say we’d gained 25 to 30 per cent in improved weights in the cattle,” Mr Bowling said.
“The main difference comes from less handling of your stock.
“Compared with the cows who have access to MaxiMin, the ones who come in from the coast country do not have good condition their coats don’t shine.
“Years ago you’d often see the effects of mineral deficiencies in cattle.
“Just from copper deficiency they’d get stirry and they’d go quiet wild.
“It would make the cattle lose weight; nowadays, we have a nice quiet mob of cattle.”
Mr Bowling describes his country as ‘diverse’.
“We’ve got poor country and we’ve got good country. The poor is the exact opposite of the good; the coastal country is very warm but the feed is poor.
“We run the cows down there and when it’s time to calve we bring them up to the heavier country to eat the flush of new feed.”
Supplementary feeding is a rarity. Cattle run on the coast will wander to the shore for a daily feed of kelp, while the heavier country has been sown down to white clover, fescue and ryegrass.
Medics are used on the coastal country and cocksfoot is sown on the poorer areas.
“You still have to put copper back into the soil to improve your pastures but that’s not really taken up by the cattle through the pastures,” Mr Bowling said.
Improved water and minerals is also helping with changes in management of the cattle, bringing weaning on earlier at around 110 days to help improve the fertility of the cows.
“Then we can send the cows back to the coast and they can look after themselves while in calf, and we put the weaners on to the better country.”
Mr Bowling admits the change in watering system has not been easy, involving small dams being filled in and lots of trial and error in developing good troughs.
“The main thing is to use good quality trough valves. At first we used just the run of the mill ones and we were checking them all the time.
“Better quality ones take out the risk,” he said.
“Adding the minerals in a ready made form through the water is the most efficient and easiest to do.
“Some people still mix their own, but it’s time consuming, and if you don’t get it right, you can have a reaction between the minerals and they aren’t necessarily taken up well by the stock,” he said.
Available through rural merchandisers, MaxiMin can be applied as a feed supplement, through watering points or as a drench.
The product aims to increase the intake of selenium, sulphur, phosphorus, manganese, magnesium, zinc, calcium, cobalt, iron, copper, boron and sodium.
