Cattle

Our heifers have been a very interesting study in fetal programming. We have 67 heifers that were born here from mother cows that were on SweetPro for their entire breeding and gestation period. We have 20 heifers that are from our other ranch that’s Reno’s brother runs, and those heifers’ mothers were only on SweetPro during the harsh winter months in the last trimester of gestation. Out of our current total of 29 calved out heifers, only THREE are from the other ranch’s bunch, the remaining 26 that have calved are from our bunch here, (the remaining herd of heifers from the other place is being calved out by my niece/nephew, and they have 11) meaning, our heifers bred up on the first cycle at a rate that is over twice as fast than the other ranch’s heifers. Its a good comparison b/c the mother cow and bull genetics are the same in both herds, and the heifers from both places were all consolidated as yearlings into one pasture for breeding last season, so they all grazed the same range, serviced by the same bulls. Conception rate for our group of heifers was significantly higher at preg testing as well.

We tried the stress blend with garlic this year with my daughter’s 4-H calves. The calves gained well and hardly ever needed fly spray. I will be using it again when we get the next set of calves.

My calves (weaned onto the Kaf Kandi blocks) finished 32 days sooner and weighed 30lbs more than my 10 year average I think it is the blocks.

We wintered our cows and coming first calf heifers on FiberMate 20, Redmond salt, and long stem hay. This spring, we were pleased with the healthy and vigorous calves. We like the value of the balanced minerals and protein provided by the FiberMate 20.

For the past three years, we have been developing our replacement heifers and supplementing our cows post calving on SweetPro tubs and Redmond salt with great success. In addition to the hay savings we have experienced, the general health and fertility has also seemed to improve. I am a real believer in the benefits of the added enzymes and probiotics contained in the SweetPro tubs.

We have a Grand Prix horse with loads of talent but not the easiest keeper. I’ve had horses in the past like him that seem like nothing works. Feeding him more volume fails because he’s also picky. Rarely, will he finish his breakfast by lunch. To add injury to insult, he got an infection in his leg in the fall and and lost all the muscle tone we worked so hard to get. This winter, the horse was truly at ground zero. After meeting Mike at Redmond, we decided that this horse would be the best candidate for Daily Gold. He’s been on it for a few months now and the results are remarkable. Now, looking back at the symptoms, it was clear he had ulcers as the root cause of all his problems. The Daily Gold not only cooled out his gut, but also stimulated his appetite. It makes sense. On a side note, my wife never eats breakfast because of an upset stomach in the mornings. After Mike recommended Redmond Clay, ( the human grade daily gold), her GI issues subsided and now I scramble eggs for two instead of eating alone, but back to the horse. In the first week, I noticed our horse was finishing his breakfast like the others. Every day, it seemed there was a different horse in the stall. He had more flesh, more energy and better muscle tone. I’ve since taken him off every other supplement except Daily Gold. Instead of having to over feed, he eats a portion consistent with the other horses his size. I can’t stress enough how much Daily Gold has improved our horse’s condition. All of our horses are now on Daily Gold. We have discontinued our ulcer supplements with great results. I can testify that Daily Gold performs exactly as advertised.

Just thought I would drop you an email and let you know some of our results over the course of the winter. We fed the backgrounder tubs to about 1250 head of yearlings, and Redmond salt and conditioner to the other 1250 head of yearling on our place. On a bad year we suffer from about 120 cases of coccidiosis in our yearlings. This year we only doctored one (and we are not even sure if he was actually sick with it or not). Although we still had some foot rot out of one truckload of cattle that came in our sickness was next to nothing this year, which was good considering how bad of a winter we had. The product really works. Thanks. Just a little side note here about the gains we have had with our yearlings on SweetPro and Redmond products. Over the last week we have sold about 600 head of yearlings in two bunches. They were started out on the backgrounder tub and then switched to FiberMate 18’s part way through the summer. They ate about .75 lbs per day of the tubs and were space fed as well. We had Redmond salt on the side and they were just on summer rangeland and we still gained 2.99lbs on one bunch and 3.02 lbs per day on the other. These particular cattle didn’t have fly control and no growth hormones either.

I use SweetPro garlic/stress and Redmond salt with the garlic and stress package exclusively on  yearling heifers during the summer months.  The heifers spend more time grazing with the fly repellent qualities of garlic and less time bunched in the corner of the pasture on hot days fighting flies.  They come off summer pasture in excellent shape, well prepared for fall and winter here or resale, depending on their destination.