It has been a tough season - keep focused.
Lately, spore counts have been exceptionally high, so don’t lose focus:
- Keep up zinc dosing for as long as there is a possibility of high spore counts – stopping too soon carries more risk than continuing unnecessarily
- Dry stock are at risk – water intake will be insufficient if dosing zinc via water so boluses (zinc ‘bullets’) are a good option
- Be wary of overdose
- Standard dose rate is 2.1g elemental Zinc/100kg liveweight
- Crisis dose rate is 3.2g elemental Zinc/100kg liveweight (only in emergency)
- MineralBoost Zinc via supplementary feed is an easy way to get zinc into your cows – 200g per cow per day (450kg liveweight)
- Zinc can impede uptake of calcium from the diet – too much zinc can cause milk fever
- MineralBoost Zinc is not just zinc, it also contains calcium, magnesium and sodium
- Avoid giving copper as this can stop zinc absorption by the cow (unless the copper is chelated or ‘organic’)
Gribbles's facial eczema reports are available here:
https://labportal.gribbles.co.nz/#/public/facial-eczema
As always, if you have any questions or need advice, contact your local MineralBoost consultant.
