Tom Schnabel of Schnabel Ranch in Eureka, South Dakota gives his feedback on Riomax.

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Herd Details

400hd seed stock operation

Fast Facts

Cut open cow herd from 10% down to 3%
Seeing pasture savings by cutting back an acre per pair
Better breed back
Consumption at 1/5lb/day/hd

Schnabel Ranch Simmentals, a 400hd seed stock operation based in Eureka, South Dakota, has the highest stocking rate in the area. How do they do it? Obviously, it takes a combination of things, but Tom believes that Riomax® has played a big part in achieving this.

Hear what made Tom switch to Riomax® supplements, how they compare to his old program, and why he's never looked back since starting on them over 8 years ago.

“We raise a cowherd of 550 cows; we got purebred Simmentals. We have an annual production sale on a Saturday every February. We've been using the Riomax® barrels for four years now. Been getting very good conception rates, and a lot less open cows by using them. Also getting help with the fetal programming of the calves, better uniformity in our calf crop, and better weight gain.

We used to often run 10% open on the cow herd. In our first full year of using the barrels, we dropped down to 5% open. Every year since then, we've been getting another 1/2 to 3/4 percent better on our conception rates. With 500 cows, and an extra 5% bred, that's a lot of extra calves you got running around. An extra 25 - 30 calves running around here, $1,000 calves. I mean, who wouldn't take an extra $30,000?

Consumption on Riomax® tubs, what they say it's where they stay. Being a stingy German, I try to pinch every penny possible. In the first year, we measured them to check consistency. Because they were transitioning to something totally new, we thought that they would over-consume. But, they stayed right where they needed to. 1/3 of a pound is the most that anything gets too. And that high end is primarily on our first-calf heifers who are in a little bit more confinement. They're growing and raising a calf at the same time, so they need some extra nutrients.

Since we've been using the Riomax® barrels, our scrotal circumference and the fertility on our cattle has improved. We use the PG360™ barrel with the flax in there, and the omegas in there certainly helped with the scrotal development. We’ve been averaging 2-3 centimeters bigger than what we did prior. So, bigger scrotal development, more fertility, faster breeding, better results on the semen check. I mean, we checked 50 bulls this year and we only had 1 that was questionable.

So I plan on staying with the product because it's doing what we need it to do. We're converting, we're getting the rate of gains that we want, we're getting the breed back we need, getting the development we want of the cattle, and, that's what it's all about. Try to get our initial return back and, you know, everybody wants to make a little money. If we can convert feed for fewer dollars, it's more money in our pocket that way.

I can't say enough about it. Excellent product. Simple. Got everything you need. A little extra salt is all you got to add with it. And the customer service is there, so I just can't say enough about it.”

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Open cows, pounds you don't wean, sickness, or forage that goes out the back end don't make you money, do they?

A healthy herd drives profits higher. And a profitable ranch can withstand volatile markets and unpredictable weather. Gain control of your future.

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15-30% forage & hay savings with Riomax

Riomax® is revolutionizing the way ranchers deal with high input costs. With better digestion, your herd can get all the nutrients they need from less grass. This leaves you with more days on grass (you start feeding later in the fall), less stress, and a more padded pocketbook.

Down n dirty proof

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Seen a lot of savings on our on our pastures. Generally, figure about five and a half to six acres of pair around through here. We've been even last year through the drought of that we had of twenty twenty, we did four and a half acres of pair on on ours, still had adequate grass left. Cattle came off in good condition. They weren't weren't malnutritioned, weren't low body scores. Been running pretty consistent, six body score better on everything. We're paying right around fifty dollar an acre cash rent up here is kinda kind of a common thing. You can knock out an acre here off of every cow that that saves a lot of money. Mean, fifty fifty bucks and you don't need four hundred another four hundred acres. It's another twenty thousand. So all of a sudden you got forty forty five thousand dollars in your pocket and you still have all the extra added benefits through the mineral, the health benefits of it. And it really saved on the last year too with the drought. We didn't think we'd get through. We put the same amount of number in the pastures and it didn't rain. We pulled it out and we still had old grass in the pasture. I didn't know the tub saved that whole deal. We had stretched it a lot because there was a lot of people selling cows and we didn't sell anything and we didn't pull them out early. And this year, most of the pastures around here are pretty much nothing. And we drove through everything. We still got, you know, shoots of grass and tufts of grass all over the place. Not a lot, but it we kept them. It made a huge difference. As far as paying for itself, you know, you got to feed and you start saving instead of a lot of guys are up to forty five, fifty five pounds. It was figured somewhere in there a big cow and even when they had the calf on them sixty pounds. So if you're feeding thirty pounds, yeah, it's gonna easily pay for itself without you see a bit. I mean, we, you can see it on the cow calf pairs too, bigger calves. We calve in May, June, and we're weaving seven hundred and some pound calves off of Dallas. So it makes, yeah, we can see the difference really easy. You just go through each step and see We're running more cows than we used to run on the same acres. That is a big deal. Because I used to on on my pastures, they're not big pastures, but on my pastures, I used to run twenty five head and they would have it grazed down to nothing in five months easy. Now I can run thirty, thirty five on the same pastures, and they can stay there another month longer easy on any given year. And this year, they got to stay two months longer, and there's still grass left over. Well, yeah, it's high priced, but it's like if if you can afford or not. But I think you can afford it because you cannot afford not to feed it because you can get your cattle to market faster. They're healthier. You could run more cattle on your land or you can stay there longer before you have to move on to an another patch. The cows are way healthier. They're way more content. They're happy. They're happy cows.