Technology and agriculture. Most of us want to be known for being innovative, creative, having foresight or making a discovery. Progress is perhaps another term used for finding new solutions to old problems. In livestock nutrition, we’ve made numerous strides in the past 40-50 years. One could list many advancements and discoveries like Ionophores, ration software, better feed mixers, forage analysis and harvesting equipment and CRYSTALYX® BioBarrel®’s. Many of these seem to be the norm today or even old technology, but in their beginnings they all had their fair share of skepticism and naysayers. This is basic human nature and has been repeated over time. Even Henry Ford had his skeptics about the automobile more than a century ago as have more modern-day pioneers like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.
In our business of supplementing cattle, we’ve had our skeptics and naysayers too. However, thanks to curiosity and “outside the box thinking” early adopters and others have helped bring forth some very useful and profitable tools. Take for example CRYSTALYX® Brand Supplements. Just over 20 years ago, this brand had a much narrower range of applications than what we see it used for today. It was basically a protein supplement fed free-choice to cattle from late summer through the winter or into early spring. That was it. It’s still important today, but success however breeds success and more innovation. Later, more applications for CRYSTALYX were discovered such as improving grazing management and health in dairy and feedlot cattle. CRYSTALYX has also been shown to be a very effective delivery system for mineral and vitamins, feed through fly control compounds, Bovatec® and Bio-Mos®. Then even more innovations such as the BioBarrel single trip container was introduced making an easy to use supplement even more practical and environmentally responsible, thus furthering the application of where CRYSTALYX could be fed and used.
Skeptics and Naysayers
All the above had skeptics in the beginning, and I among them at times. Some would say, “CRYSTALYX is way too expensive to be fed as a protein supplement”. Skeptics weren’t considering actual cost per head per day, feed delivery cost and increased forage utilization. The naysayers struggled with just how ¼ lb. of CRYSTALYX® Brigade® fed to weaned calves starting in a feedlot or grow yard could have such positive performance and health benefits when the same nutrients were already provided in the ration. They didn’t consider animal behavior aspects and that CRYSTALYX being available complemented both the calf and the feed intake of the ration therefore helping calves get off to a good healthy start. Additionally, products like Bio-Mos made perfect sense to be delivered via a CRYSTALYX formula, but many thought Bio-Mos was just a fad. Today, it’s used extensively in several CRYSTALYX formulas and highly recommended in numerous calving programs to promote animal health, optimal gut health and performance.
Our livestock industry has not advanced to where it is today by accident and neither has the CRYSTALYX brand. It took creative thinking as well as research and acceptance by early adopters before it caught on. As mentioned above, the BioBarrel container has been a good example. It was first introduced in 2006 and had a lot of skeptics early on -- it was different in look, handled different and added cost to the product. Its use slowly increased but then rapidly grew about 6-8 years later as continuous improvements in durability and weatherability features were added and more as more producers started accepting it. Now, BioBarrel’s are as common as CRYSTALYX itself and some ranchers won’t use anything else.
Blueprint Program
Today we are advancing another new tool and application in our CRYSTALYX® Blueprint® product offering. My fellow bloggers at CRYSTALYX have written about this new product line and explaining one of its primary features that removes all inorganic trace minerals and replaces them with Bioplex® organic trace minerals. Doing so is somewhat radical and goes against conventional wisdom to many nutritionist and feed professionals. It’s understandable, we are feeding lower levels of organic trace minerals than what’s previously been accepted as the standard with inorganics and spending more for it. The good news is that both private and public research and in the field experience thus far is providing good evidence that the Blueprint philosophy and concept is working. The old standard requirements were established using old technology and with different trace mineral sources than what we have available today in Blueprint. I am pleased at just how well accepted this philosophy of offering a higher quality and more biologically available source of trace minerals is to our customers. Yes, it costs more but can perform better and our customers, the livestock producers “get it.”
I truly believe it’s easier for our customers to accept this new technology than it is for many of us feed professionals that have old conventional wisdom or preconceived notions. We’ve always thought the way we thought because that was what we knew. Just like a feedlot pen rider or a dairy herdsman who are with their cattle every day will see the health benefit of a CRYSTALYX program faster than the consultant who’s mainly looking at numbers on paper and not with the cattle all the time.
Learning is Lifelong
So, my message this week with this blog is to always keep an open mind and strive to improve your nutrition programs. Learning is lifelong and without adapting new ideas and new ways of thinking, we’d have a lot less to offer our customers and still be selling just a few CRYSTALYX products from October to March. Likewise, our customers would probably still be weaning 400 lb. calves, having pregnancy rates in the 80% range or less and have reduced feed efficiency in the feedlot. Technology is a good thing and we need to use it where it makes sense. CRYSTALYX is a good supplement and it makes perfect sense. The past is what we used to know, the present is where we learn, and the future is to be discovered.
