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Trace element drench

jemski

Member
Location
Dorset
Please don't be put of drenching by this comment the trial work that I referred to earlier showed there was a significant residual effect from drenching although it was not as good as blousing it was a lot better than doing nothing.

Thank you, I won't be [emoji4]It was mainly for the copper which is stored anyway.

It's the mayo 5 in 1 boluses I'm waiting for. We are low in zinc here so really like the addition of that too.

Apparently there's a shortage of animax boluses too.
 

scholland

Member
Location
ze3
Thank you, I won't be [emoji4]It was mainly for the copper which is stored anyway.

It's the mayo 5 in 1 boluses I'm waiting for. We are low in zinc here so really like the addition of that too.

Apparently there's a shortage of animax boluses too.
Not sure about a shortage, mine came yesterday after ordering on Wednesday.
 

bovine

Member
Location
North
Thank you, I won't be [emoji4]It was mainly for the copper which is stored anyway.

Nope. Got heaps of blood results to prove it too.........

They can't put enough copper in to top up a deficient sheep without making the product too dangerous to those that didn't need extra copper. Very modest levels.

PM me and I'll sell you some magic beans.....
 

Top Tip.

Member
Location
highland
Nope. Got heaps of blood results to prove it too.........

They can't put enough copper in to top up a deficient sheep without making the product too dangerous to those that didn't need extra copper. Very modest levels.

PM me and I'll sell you some magic beans.....
These blood tests for mineral status are notoriously unreliable.
 

bovine

Member
Location
North
These blood tests for mineral status are notoriously unreliable.
Depends of what you mean.

If blood levels are normal then for most things the diet is adequate. Copper is perhaps the exception as the liver stores copper and tops up the blood level so blood levels only fall after the liver store is depleted. To get a good handle on copper status then we need liver levels too to give an indication of total liver copper. If the blood level is low then it's a waste of time measuring liver copper as it's always low.

I struggle to think of an example where testing that was corrected has failed to improve the productivity of a flock. Just throwing a bolus at them and never testing again is practically useless - I spend quite a bit of time dealing with badly supplemented sheep. Farmers moan about spending a couple of hundred testing but throw thousands of pounds creating expensive urine by repeatedly drenching sheep.

I've said before - for optimum productivity you need just the right amount of everything every day.

Testing (with follow up testing) is VERY reliable. If you pick your sheep and do enough of it.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Thank you, I won't be [emoji4]It was mainly for the copper which is stored anyway.

It's the mayo 5 in 1 boluses I'm waiting for. We are low in zinc here so really like the addition of that too.

Apparently there's a shortage of animax boluses too.

There's a problem with sourcing Zinc as we can't get Zincosel adult anymore and we had to buy pre tupping and pre lambing Zincosel lamb now. The lamb bolus last 6 months in a ewe so we've gone for that but we bought the last 2000 they had I think so some ewes - the Welsh, are having Co-Se-I-Cure?

Bimeda hope that the zinc problem will be rectified by Christmas but we bought Zincosel lamb for the pre lambing incase.
Mayo 4-1 or 5-1 will be our next choice I think?
 

Top Tip.

Member
Location
highland
Depends of what you mean.

If blood levels are normal then for most things the diet is adequate. Copper is perhaps the exception as the liver stores copper and tops up the blood level so blood levels only fall after the liver store is depleted. To get a good handle on copper status then we need liver levels too to give an indication of total liver copper. If the blood level is low then it's a waste of time measuring liver copper as it's always low.

I struggle to think of an example where testing that was corrected has failed to improve the productivity of a flock. Just throwing a bolus at them and never testing again is practically useless - I spend quite a bit of time dealing with badly supplemented sheep. Farmers moan about spending a couple of hundred testing but throw thousands of pounds creating expensive urine by repeatedly drenching sheep.

I've said before - for optimum productivity you need just the right amount of everything every day.

Testing (with follow up testing) is VERY reliable. If you pick your sheep and do enough of it.
Personally I have found grass and forage testing to give me a better idea of the deficiencies that I have it certainly highlighted areas that had not been picked up by the bloods .
 

bovine

Member
Location
North
Personally I have found grass and forage testing to give me a better idea of the deficiencies that I have it certainly highlighted areas that had not been picked up by the bloods .
They are all pieces of the jigsaw, but when you look at various interactions you will see that just because there's enough of something in the bit of forrage you sample, it might not be getting into the animals in sufficient levels. The beauty of sampling the sheep is we find the answer to that end question. forrage varies wildly over fields, altitude, soil type, compaction, crop etc that I really think you throw in a lot of variability. That is 'averaged out' to a degree as the sheep has had lots of bites of feed.
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
It's 6 weeks not 6 months for the mayo bolus

Really? :(

We've just done all our lambs and they've put on condition since then.

Edit: I thought you meant the six month ones only lasted six weeks. :eek:


Mayo do both a 6 week and 6 month lamb bolus (well the 6 week is more like a pill) so that's probably the confusion.

The 6mth one is called something like "lamb finisher"

We used the 6 week pill last year & the 6mth bolus this year.

Was going to use smartshot but the bolus seems much better value.
 

Razor8

Member
Location
Ireland
Mayo do both a 6 week and 6 month lamb bolus (well the 6 week is more like a pill) so that's probably the confusion.

The 6mth one is called something like "lamb finisher"

We used the 6 week pill last year & the 6mth bolus this year.

Was going to use smartshot but the bolus seems much better value.

the 6 month bolus is alot more than 50p a bolus. with us its €1.40
 

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Webinar: Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer 2024 -26th Sept

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On Thursday 26th September, we’re holding a webinar for farmers to go through the guidance, actions and detail for the expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer. This was planned for end of May, but had to be delayed due to the general election. We apologise about that.

Farming and Countryside Programme Director, Janet Hughes will be joined by policy leads working on SFI, and colleagues from the Rural Payment Agency and Catchment Sensitive Farming.

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