Caring For Your Calves & Cows
We’re pretty sure you wouldn’t want to put up with eating lettuce all day every day, a poor immune system, and uncomfortable gut issues.
Your animals feel the same!
Calving is just around the corner, and it’s important to keep your cows in good health, and give your calves a great start in their development.
Humates are part of a group of substances called humic substances that make up soil humus and they are important for both soil and animal health. ‘Conventional’ farming practices have stripped large quantities of humus from the soil, therefore animals are not receiving enough of these substances in their diet.
Southern Humates’ product ‘StockMate’ is a certified organic supplement that is high in carbon. It combats diarrhoea in calves, supports rumen development, improves colostrum quality of calved cows when fed to in-calf cows, reduces somatic cell counts in dairy herds, aids in preventing animal dehydration, and works as a detoxifying agent in the gut, aiding in the prevention of disease and treatment of sick animals, and promotes good immunity, gut health, strength, and condition.
Additionally, diverse pastures improve animal performance and welfare.
No single plant species can provide all the nutrients in sufficient proportions necessary for ruminants – individuals differ in their nutrient requirements and toxin tolerances; said another way, like us, they’re all different and need different foods!
Having diversity in our pastures can fulfill these nutrient requirements whilst possessing equivalent or greater nutritional value relative to ryegrass-clover pastures in terms of metabolisable energy (ME) and crude protein (CP) content.
Diverse pastures reduce animal illnesses and disorders that occur from excessive nutrient intake from a few plant species as they provide a greater array of biochemicals, such as those with medicinal properties.
Diverse pastures also reduce livestock stress caused by monotonous pastures with unbalanced nutrient constituents.
As a result of such diversity, there have been reports of increased milk and milk protein yields, and increased weight gains due to the prevention of premature satiety (aka. animals don’t get as full as quickly). The latter is due to improved grazing motivation as a consequence of increased choice in the animals’ pastoral buffet.
We proudly offer both Southern Humates products, such as StockMate, and custom diverse seed mixes, through Symbiosis Ag Ltd, so you can increase the diversity of your pastures, and improve the health of your animals - and of course the production and profitability that correlates.