Lewis says farmers have always struggled to get lime and magnesium oxide to cows. “It’s always been an Achilles heel as we could not get enough minerals into cows unless it was manually drenched,” he told Dairy News.
The conedose, launched by Winton Stock Feed, has changed all that. It allows any liquid or powdered mineral supplement including non-water soluble products like magnesium oxide to be mixed into molasses. It mixes through vigorous air agitation and then hold them in suspension through a low rate of air agitation while they are fed out in liquid feed systems during milking.
Lewis says he mixes 50kg of magnesium oxide and 100kg of lime flour with 800kg of molasses in the conedose. He noticed the positive effect immediately. In the first week of September, the farm had two downer cows. Since he started using the conedose, there have been no cases.
“It’s a basic system and easy to use. It’s a good tool but not the only tool in the tool box. But it’s a good tool to ensure adequate minerals for cows.”
Lewis employs four full-time and three part-time staff on his 330ha farm at Pukeatua. He milks 1100 cows on mostly pasture. However, he also supplements grass with maize grown the farm, 800 tonnes of PKE, 200 tonnes of tapioca and barley and 150t of molasses.
He was approached by Winton Stock Feeds two months ago to trial conedose. While the conedose is leased free, the deal requires him to buy molasses from the company.
Lewis says the company wants his farm to give the conedose a good punishment. “The idea is to see if the conedose can stand up to the test of a large herd. So far,so good.”
Lewis says his staff found it much easier to mix minerals with molasses.
One issue they have is mixing the lime and magnesium oxide by hand before pumping it into pipes from the conedose.
“Mag and Lime is a hard product to mix so the staff mix it with water in a 200 litre drum into a slurry before pumping it into the conedose.”
