One of my early feed career mentors, Mick Lovelace, was famous for teaching me and several colleagues I still work with today the value of mineral supplementation.  It wasn’t the importance of mineral nutrition that Mick taught but rather the importance of consistent and predictable intake with self-fed supplements.  One of his favorite sayings was, “there’s two ways to supplement cattle, our way or the wrong way.”   While this is definitely a biased statement and overlooking  lots of good products, the take home message he was conveying was that a mineral program, no matter how good it looks on paper, isn’t worth anything if intake is improper or management is lacking.

I’m following up on some points in Mark Robbins’ blog last week.  He mentioned how versatile CRYSTALYX^® was as a summer mineral program and mentioned several good attributes or “Multi-Tasks” of the product.  I’ll take it a step further and again point out what a great mineral program CRYSTALYX^® can be.   CRYSTALYX^® has about 7 different products that are true mineral supplements, meaning they aren’t formulated to deliver supplemental protein, rather they are 1:1 or 2:1 mineral supplements that deliver most all the macro and micro minerals required for beef cattle, and in some cases twice the level for performance.    What really makes CRYSTALYX^® work well as a mineral supplement is its delivery; consistent intake by a large percentage of the herd.  It is a block supplement so people often don’t think of it as a mineral as they would a loose form of mineral, yet it is.

Like my early career mentor, I too am biased and not afraid to show it in this article.  Feeding mineral in the CRYSTALYX^® form allows many multi-tasks as Mr. Robbins pointed out but also much more.

1. It’s the ultimate weatherized mineral.  CRYSTALYX^® is solid. It does not “cake up” when wet.  It will not wash away, blow away, or become unpalatable or leach when wet.  I applaud our industry for the advancements made in loose mineral weatherization, and much of it within my own organization, but no loose mineral can boast the weatherability of CRYSTALYX^®.
2. CRYSTALYX^® minerals are user friendly.  The barrels are easily portable and can be offered in various sizes (250, and 125 lb. steel, 200 lb. plastic, and of course the 200lb BioBarrel^®).  The larger sizes can minimize the number of trips made to a pasture hauling mineral and there are no sacks to dispose of, salt to mix for intake manipulation, etc.  Again, I’m not trying to bad mouth a good, well managed loose mineral program but I often time see loose mineral programs suffer due to empty feeders, not enough feeders placed , poor intake and palatability issues,  too much or too little salt, weather, management errors, etc.
3. Cattle like CRYSTALYX^® mineral supplements and by a large percentage of the herd will consume them on a regular basis.  Research conducted over 10 years ago in Montana illustrates this well (see chart below).  Consistent intake of mineral really means better assimilation and efficient use there of vs. erratic intake.  Think of feedlot or dairy cattle dry feed intakes. Consistency is a good thing.  Too often, the reality of mineral supplementation are periods of excessive intake which will lower the overall bioavailability followed or preceded by very little intake and only half or two thirds of the herd consuming most all of the mineral – meaning one third to one half really aren’t consuming mineral at all.

Overall, CRYSTALYX^® can be your mineral program at any time of the year.   Now is a good time to evaluate your upcoming summer program and see which CRYSTALYX^® mineral program can work. During the summer of 2013, we conducted several evaluations with Hubbard Feeds of our newest CRYSTALYX^® mineral supplement, Breed Up Max.  Supplement intake averaged approximately 3 ounces per day (typical of mineral programs either loose or block form) and performance was excellent – view testimonial here.

 I encourage all producers to consider a CRYSTALYX^® mineral program, especially if you’ve had other programs where cattle simply would not eat mineral consistently or have had weather or management challenges. I would also encourage all those who sell CRYSTALYX^® to be assured that CRYSTALYX^® mineral programs are unique, successful, economical and easy to manage.  Use them to your customers’ advantage to help be a leader in mineral nutrition.    Afterall, there is more than one way to supplement mineral; I won’t be quite as bold as Mick and say ours is the only right way, but I will argue that CRYSTALYX^® mineral programs are often times the best way.