When dry cows are inside on grass silage or other forages they need dry cow minerals to balance the macro minerals, the trace minerals or the vitamins that are missing from the diet. Milking cows that are indoors will be on meal supplement that will deliver the essential minerals in most cases.

Some farmers don’t feed dry cow minerals and don’t have any problems but for every farmer that has said this to me I have another who said I had to supplement Selenium or Iodine and when I did all my retained cleanings and calving problems were much reduced.

There are independent recommendations from Teagasc on what minerals and vitamins are required. There are also farms that are short (deficient) in maybe Phosphorus or Selenium that need more than the standard mix because all silage made from that farm will be short in the essential mineral or vitamin. Magnesium is also very important to allow cows mobilise and absorb calcium post calving.

The first step in any project like this is to get your forage tested but in the absence of this information then the best thing you can do is make sure you are at least getting the recommended minerals.

Four pictures

1. Cow calving – Know when your herd is calving and work backwards from there in terms of timing for feeding minerals. You need at least six to eight weeks of feeding minerals prior to calving.

2. Cows at feed face – Ideally have your silage (forage) tested for quality and minerals. Also make sure if you are dusting minerals that you have enough feed space or maybe you may have to feed minerals twice per day to allow different cows reach the feed face.

3. Label/jug and bucket – every bag or container should be clearly labelled. Check the label to make sure it has the basic standard mineral mix at least. You need to know the feeding rate. Most mixes have a feeding rate of 120 grams per head per day. Measure and weigh and mark the bucket for your own herd size so that you don’t need to use the jug every day.

4. See below for table with recommendations.