Do Mineral Tubs Actually Work?

Haven't cleaned a cow for ten years. I don't miss that job at all. Not one bit. My daughter-in-law would tell you the stink factor alone is worth about two hundred bucks, just so you know. We set the record for cows died from prolapse uterus and had more freak calves and defective calves. This goes against everything I believe in. Kim never feeds tubs and he sure doesn't buy expensive stuff. Was having some problems getting bulls passing fertility tests on their first go around as yearling bulls. It looked like I had everything right, but I still wasn't happy with the results. I was pretty confident it was nutritional. I hired a couple nutritionists, they knew exactly what my problem was, they had all the answers and nothing changed. And I had one of my bull customers earlier that year tell me they'd used a tub that had flax seed in it, and they had the best semen check they'd ever had. And Rio looked like a really good fit. So we started with Rio about September of that year. So the calves were weaned and we got them on Rio right away and we definitely saw an improvement in the amount of bulls that passed on the first go round. But the big kick was the next year. The calves that were inside mom, that was phenomenal. And then I knew that we had solved the equation. Man, if we can fix the semen cells themselves to that level, imagine what it's doing on the female side. And that's where we've probably seen our biggest increase is the amount of replacement heifers that stick to the first time AI. Their mannerisms, contentment is just so different under basically the same conditions. When we started using the tubs year round, we had some really bad drought years that our cows were just pretty content and still looked pretty good, and the neighbors didn't. There's times like, well, we got about another thirty days or twenty eight days, whatever, and we may not be able to come back to this paddock. And we did. And it's like, how is that possible? Because the math says, no. We should be about out of feed, and yet the cows look good. They're content, and there's still feed out there. So we probably noticed more in our grazing of our pastures before we noticed it in the feed savings of the feed truck, which is where you should have noticed it first. My son finally asked me, hey, don't we have sixty pairs in that corner? Yeah. Well, why are you feeding only six thousand pounds when you've always fed them seven? Well, because we're not cleaning up. Oh, yeah. Savings. Got it. Know? We do have a scale on the feed truck. We know what we're doing, but we just hadn't put two and two together. Just hadn't finished the equation, basically. Somebody says, well, what does Rio do for you? And it's hard for me to pinpoint what it does, because it does all these little tiny things along the way that make your life way better and way easier. I haven't cleaned a cow for almost ten years. Doesn't matter if it's twin, backwards calves, anything. I haven't cleaned a cow for ten years. I don't miss that job at all. Not one bit. We've used the garlic. Do I still have flies? Yeah. But the cows are saying there are flies on them and they don't care because the flies aren't biting. In a lot of this goes against everything I believe in. Kim never feeds tubs and he sure doesn't buy expensive stuff. And now Kim's doing that. People watch me and they watch my cattle and and they see what I do and go, yeah, there there it must be legit or else he he wouldn't be doing it because I'm always looking for that other way to do a little bit cheaper, a little faster, a little quicker, whatever it is. And I've stuck with this for a long time, and I I don't see that changing. And I I will admit to this, and I suppose Trevor's gonna see this video, so he'll have to hear this too. There have been times where I've questioned maybe I've done it long enough I could do something else and get by it cheaper for a year or two. And then I go talk to my veterinarian and I make some stupid comment like, kind of kind of an easy calving season considering what we came through last summer. At me and goes, are you nuts? We set the record for cows died from prolapse uterus and had more freak calves and defective calves because cows were eating stuff they weren't supposed to be eating out in the pasture because of the drought. And I went, oh, yeah. I had none of that. No. I guess we'll just keep as real. We're good. What makes real work? I don't know. I can't answer all those things. What does it do for me? Lots of little things that just kinda add up to the big thing. And there's times to spend money for things, and there's times to save money. Per ton, it's hard to swallow. I get that. But when you figure it out per head per day, yeah, not so much.