It's Mineral Time!

I put out minerals the other day, and thought I would show what kind of mineral feeder we use. This mineral feeder is made out of the bottom of a 55 gallon drum and a flap of rubber. I do believe Shane got this rubber from a plant that was going to throw it away. It was a belt off of some kind of machine. He just cut it to size.

We have a loose mineral custom mixed based on what is needed for our area.  This mineral is also available for not only the cows, but the goats and horses as well.  Many times they will be in the same pasture together, so we had to have something that they all could consume.  In the past we had used the PVC pipe mineral feeders for the goats, but the minerals always got hard and it wasn't feasible to use with the cattle and horses too.  I have a photo of the goats using this particular type of  mineral feeder in this post from last year.  You can click here and scroll down to see the photo.

I must mention that we do have several in each pasture.  They will all try to attack just one, so it is necessary (especially with all of our cattle) to keep several feeders out.  They tend to get rowdy if they are all wanting it at the same time.  They are more "well-behaved" when they have the option to go to the next one when the other is "occupied".   Also something learned through trial and error is that the rubber flap must be wide enough that when the goats climb on top if it (you know they will ) that it will not sink down into the minerals.  It will then open that tub up to collect pellets; not a good thing ;)