Loose Mineral vs Lick Tubs. Which Is Better?

Should I use a loose mineral or should I use a tub? A lot of guys honestly don't even know offers a loose mineral. We have it as an offering in the background, and some of our customers do use it. Let's talk about the differences between the loose mineral and the tub and why majority of the customers tend to stick with the tubs. We have the same mineral makeup, same digestive ingredients in the tub and the loose mineral. So as far as quality, there's not a huge trade off to go with our loose mineral. There's still no salt in the product. The tubs have no salt. The loose mineral has no salt. You're not paying for any salt or anything in there. What I will say makes the biggest difference tends to be the consistency of consumption. For guys that are doing a TMR rash and maybe mixing it in the feed, there might be a place to do loose mineral. But what a lot of our guys see is unless you gotta make sure your your rations mix properly, so you're getting that mineral all the way through, so every cow gets her her dose of mineral, and unless you're ensuring that the loose mineral mixes all the way through the ration or if you're feeding the mineral free choice, you tend to get a lot of peaks and valleys with mineral consumption. You know, one week you put out mineral and it seems like it's gone the next day, and then the next week you put out mineral and half of it's still there a week later. Now the tubs allow for a lot more consistent consumption. There's no limiter necessarily in the Riomax tub. You're getting that licking action and the cows are coming to the tub simply every day. The calves are going to it pretty soon and that licking action that you see on the tub, you're getting saliva production. Production. It's increasing their saliva production. It's actually really good for their digestive system. So when they produce more saliva, it really helps their digestion and that consistency where every single day they're going to a tub and getting their dose of mineral tends to lead to more consistent results. We have a fellow in eastern Nebraska. He's been on the tubs for several years, and he always used the the loose mineral through the summer. He got great results. He was real happy with it. Calves did well. Cows did well. The first summer he switched to the tubs. His conception rates didn't necessarily go up, but what he did notice is there was a lot more cattle in the first cycle. Seems like those cows are constantly going to the mineral every single day. So they're getting their dose every day. They're not eating eight ounces one day and none the next, and we're able to tighten that calving window up getting more of those cows bred in the first cycle. The the second example I'll use a fellow up in North Dakota. He was doing the tubs and he was doing a TMR ration. So he said, honestly, it makes more sense for me if I can mix the mineral into the ration. I like that idea better. No problem. We got him some mineral. He he just mixed it in. It went well. Calving season, he said, went good. The calves were healthy. Everything went good, but there wasn't that same pop that I saw with the tubs. One of his favorite things about Riomax when he first started was calf vigor. Calves were up, going, they just got off and rolling, and he said that the year he switched to loose mineral, he just didn't feel like he had the same vigor in the calves that he had seen previously. So the next year, he ended up actually going back to the tubs and and saw great luck with the calf vigor again. So it's not that we don't have a good quality loose mineral. I have nothing against it. And in the situations where logistically it makes more sense, maybe loose mineral is the route to go. But for the the reasons as mentioned, the majority of our guys, I would say over ninety percent of our producers end up sticking with the tubs even though on a cost per head per day basis, they are a little bit more. That consistency of consumption seemed like it made the difference between good results and great results. Be sure to talk to your dealer or the local Riomax guy what makes the most sense for your operation, loose mineral or a tub.