For the period I have actively practised as a veterinarian clinician, I have noticed an interesting problem in livestock — animals failing to come on heat. Lack of crucial mineral supplements in the animal’s diet is a major contributing factor.
Studies show that all animals need mineral supplementation for sound reproductive health and general wellness. For a dairy animal, research has proven that dairy cattle require trace mineral supplementation daily.
Sound dairy trace mineral nutrition helps improve animal health and therefore profitability. Supplementing lactating dairy cows with highly bioavailable trace minerals has several benefits.
The benefits include an animal coming on heat, being served and eventually having a calf per year as expected. In a cow’s reproductive health, sufficient mineral supplementation leads to an animal having fewer days post-calving to come on heat again and be served.
For heifers, proper mineral supplementation leads to the cow coming to heat early bringing down the age at first service and calving. An animal that is served severally before it conceives is scientifically known as a repeat breeder.
Adequate mineral supplementation leads to fewer if not a single service before an animal can conceive. This ensures that a higher percentage of a herd is pregnant at any given period. Minerals also boost resistance to diseases such as mastitis and improve milk quality by decreasing the body cells usually secreted in milk thereby enhancing human health. Dairy animals are also prone to lameness conditions which come about when an animal lacks a certain minerals in the diet.
Studies have also shown that mineral supplementation leads to good claw health reducing common hoof diseases. Since minerals boost an animal’s immunity, it is advisable to increase trace mineral reserves prior to onset of stressful conditions.
It is worth noting that building a more profitable herd begins with better dairy replacement heifer nutrition.
Calves and heifers benefit from being fed a well-balanced diet which includes mineral supplementation.
Delicate threshold
Once this delicate threshold is achieved, the animal will have an increased feed conversion efficiency therefore converting feed to weight gain. This will be accompanied by improved skeletal and muscle growth and development and minimised probability of developing health problems.
Avoiding deficiencies can help improve lactation success by minimising effect of metabolic disorders on fertility such as uterus infections and milk fever.
Mineral supplementation just forms a small component of the total diet of a beef animal; they are an important detail to get right to optimise beef cattle performance.
This makes it important to monitor mineral consumption on a herd on a daily basis. Provision of a mineral supplement will not ensure that deficiencies are met.
It is important to mention that voluntary intake of specific mineral supplements will vary from animal to animal and change with the animal’s requirements and the mineral content in the forage and any supplements.
Sufficient consumption of minerals including potassium (K), sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl) are critical for muscle contraction, nerve signal transmission and enzymatic reactions, he says. Deficiencies in these minerals can result in decreased feed intake and gains.
The ratio of calcium to phosphorous in the total diet is also important for reproductive efficiency. For instance, cattle can tolerate ratios of between 1:1 and 7:1 and any excessive calcium may decrease the absorption of other minerals.
Deficiencies in calcium and phosphorous or an imbalance in the calcium to phosphorous ratio can result in decreased fertility and milk production. Reproduction losses aren’t always obvious, but if a cow is a month or two late in breeding, it might have a mineral deficiency problem.
Trace minerals
Beef animals are ideally kept in hardship areas and sufficient calcium (Ca), phosphorous (P) and magnesium (Mg) have many vital functions, including bone development, growth, energy utilisation, membrane structure, muscle contraction and hormone secretion.
Other important trace minerals include cobalt, copper, iodine, iron, manganese, selenium and zinc. Minerals are required at very small concentrations, making deficiencies difficult to recognise. Deficiencies can result in decreased intake and gain, reduced fertility and libido, retained placentas, abortions and stillbirths, low birth weights and poor calf performance.
Deficiencies
Mineral supplementation is therefore an important factor in improving the health and performance of the cow herd.
Unfortunately, deficiencies of the slightest magnitude can easily go undetected, but can result in decreased reproductive efficiency, poor growth performance and depressed immune function.
Animals including goats, sheep, pigs and poultry need mineral supplementation for quality and quantity in production.
While executing mineral supplementation in sheep and goats, it is important to take into account negative effects such as copper poisoning. Pigs majorly suffer from sodium chloride poisoning and these can lead to losses in the farm.
In Kenya, mineral supplements are commercially available and are well compounded except in a few cases of industry mischief. They are made inform of mineral blocks, salt licks and mineral solutions.
There are specific formulas for different animal species and at different physiological states. All of these factors ultimately impact on profitability of any given herd.
-The writer is a veterinarian surgeon from the University of Nairobi
