There is an idea that cattle will supplement their own diet by licking paint and wood or eating dirt if they are lacking something. Because animals have a keen sense for things such as imminent bad weather or keeping schedule without a watch, it is easy to assume that they are trying to tell you something about their nutritional status. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Beware of fads
There are always swirling fads concerning minerals. They're especially evident in our consumer market. Humans sell colloidal minerals, eat seaweed and try anything else that is hard to find. If it is uncommon and has an anecdotal mystery about its health benefits, it must be good. Some products even claim to reverse the aging process.

Back in the livestock world, the most common fads in cattle and horse nutrition are chelated trace minerals and selenium. Though these minerals sell in the chelated form (especially copper, cobalt, zinc and manganese), there is not much evidence to support that chelated minerals are any better than the inorganic forms of these trace minerals. Furthermore, the inorganic forms are much cheaper. In reality the only reason to use these trace minerals in either of these forms is as an insurance policy.

Real needs
The mineral getting the most press today is copper. Three to five years ago it was cobalt. Before that it was zinc, and before that, selenium.

The truth about minerals is that, under practical conditions, the most needed mineral is salt. It is cheap, extremely important and used in commercial minerals as a mineral intake regulator (meaning that salt dictates the intake of other minerals).

Because animals eat four times more salt than they need, the higher the salt percentage in the mineral, the more they eat. On the other hand when salt is mixed in feed and cattle are given all the feed they want, salt actually works the opposite: keeping them from eating too much feed. The cattle then drink water and eliminate the extra salt in the bloodstream by way of urine. The salt ends up in the soil.

The next most important mineral is calcium. It is relatively cheap and should be provided in abundance. Forages provide a fair quantity of calcium, but grains are low. A common mistake with calcium is not feeding enough due to concern about the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio.

There is nothing to worry about in ruminants with calcium-to-phosphorus ratios getting too wide. Make sure you have adequate calcium and phosphorus and don't worry about the ratio.

Even more misleading is buying a mineral with a 1:1 ratio of calcium and phosphorus because you think the ratio is too wide. This usually occurs when feeding alfalfa. Again, there is not a problem. Furthermore, when a cow eats 20 pounds of a grass containing a certain amount of the calcium and phosphorus, the ratio of the entire diet is hardly changed by the cow consuming 2 to 4 ounces of a 1:1 mineral.

Phosphorus is another important mineral. However, phosphorus, even though it needs to be supplemented, is less likely to be deficient than is calcium. Under normal conditions the phosphorus requirement is close to being met.

Wide-based approach
After meeting micro mineral targets consider trace minerals, which aren't likely to be deficient.

At MFA we make high-quality minerals called Gold Star. They not only supply the most likely deficient minerals but also supply all the micro and trace minerals. We add 150 percent of the cow's requirement for trace minerals--plus an additional 10 percent of these trace minerals in the chelated form. Cattle on MFA mineral should never have a trace mineral deficiency.

So why do cattle eat dirt? Usually because they are either craving salt or suffer from acidosis. When scouring occurs and heat, if commercial mineral isn't offered, cattle may need more salt. Acidosis, on the other hand, is because the animal is consuming a lot of grain and has a bellyache. Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) should be offered when this is observed.

Some companies go to great lengths to make their minerals taste good. This almost always becomes an expensive practice. If enough soybean meal or molasses is mixed with the mineral, it ends up being a feed intake regulator for the carrier. This is exactly opposite of what is desired.

Minerals interfere with each other; offering an individual mineral at high levels in feed can tie up other minerals and create a deficiency in another.

Purchase a pre-mixed mineral. If you are feeding grain, put the mineral in the feed, to assure distribution. And for pasture, Gold Star minerals will cover all bets.