Last updated on October 6th, 2023 at 11:44 am
Did you know that by feeding Riomax®, some ranchers have been able to completely offset their costs? Essentially, that means they are feeding Riomax® for free!
Let’s discuss how much forage savings it takes to offset the cost to feed Riomax®.
What is the value of your forage?
Most ranchers know what the cost of their forage is. But what is the true value of it, alongside your cattle mineral program? How much feed or hay can you save by supplementing a quality mineral & digestion program?
On average, Riomax® tubs cost 40 cents per head per day. And typically, ranchers can reduce their hay consumption by between 15% and 30% throughout a Northern winter by supplementing Riomax®.
No doubt, it is more difficult to measure if your cattle are just out grazing. Many ranchers say it’s too hard to decipher, and you simply can’t measure it.
How do you measure forage savings?
One thing to watch for is the contentedness of your herd. If they are content earlier in the day, they are more likely to shut down sooner. If one cow stops grazing just a half-hour earlier in her morning graze, and a half-hour earlier in the afternoon, that adds up! At the end of the month, that’s 30 hours per cow that she hasn’t been out there, mowing up your real estate. What's that worth?
To help you decipher whether or not you are getting the most out of your forages, ask yourself these few questions:
- If you are rotational grazing, are you getting extended rotations?
- Are you able to push your pasture off farther, graze it farther in before you have to start caking/cubing?
- In drought conditions, are you able to bridge that gap by helping the cows digest and utilize their forage more efficiently?
Forage savings in real life
Kurt Luoma from Philipsburg, Montana is a great example of someone who was able to offset his cost completely. His cost to feed Riomax® was 34 cents per head day, at that time. When he figured out his hay savings, he was saving 34 cents per head per day. The cost of Riomax® was completely offset - in hay savings alone. Essentially, he got all his mineral for free. Who doesn't want that?
Here’s another example. Many times, ranchers using Riomax® are able to push out their hay date. So, if you have 900 mother cows, and you are able to push out your hay date for a month, you should be able to save close to $90,000! Simply because you don’t have to feed 900 mother cows hay for a month.
It all comes down to the value of your forage. The more you can pull out of the forages you do have by pushing out your hay date and stretching your pastures, the more likely you will be able to see Riomax® pay for itself.