# moving salt/mineral feeder



## CowDoc

Thanks for the responses on the polyrope. Now another question.

I have another producer that wants to know how to easily move his salt/mineral feeder between paddocks. It is one ot the "Bull proof" feeders made by Pride-of the Farm" (see: Pride of the Farm - Mineral Feeders)

Is there a way to put it on wheels or a skid to move? The owner does not have a 4 wheeler - thought it woudl be a good excuse to get one - so we are looking an manually moving it as the cows rotate.As of now, the cows get salt/mineral infrequently throughout the summer.
Thanks


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## hayray

Those are the type I started getting, different brand but looks pretty much the same thing. I just muscle them into the back of my pick-up. I know what you are talking about though, they are bulky and hard to pick up. There is a certain way to get your body underneath them to pick them up. I initially bought those because not needing a tree to tie a mineral feeder to, such as my feeders I made out of plastic 55 gallon drums hanging on trees.


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## jpritchett

In college my teacher always said the rule of thumb about having salt and mineral in your pasture is put it on the other side of the pasture away from water. Because cattle wont want to graze that side of the field because its too far of a walk. My dad always keeps ares near the water because why ruine the grass in two different spots. The cattle will stomp the grass out around the tubs. We always go to are farm store and buy tanks of molasses and then when the cows eat the molasses out. We use the tanks for are salt and mineral.


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## hayray

I move my cattle and mineral locations often and they have different locations to get water. This minimizes range damage, increases utilization of pasture.


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## mulberrygrovefamilyfarm

If you do rotational grazing like me I know your pain. I've put them on pallets etc and have never had a great success with anything I've tried because of the amount of moving (2 - 4 times a day).


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## vhaby

I don't move mineral feeders.

We graze our cattle in two large areas. One primarily is for grazing; the other is a hay meadow for one or two cuttings and then the cattle are turned in on it while the grazing pasture recovers. The working pens were in between. Initially we had a homemade mineral feeder in each pasture. Because I couldn't make the cows use a back rub in a pasture, I brought both mineral feeders into a center pen and set them in a row. Then I hung the back rub across the entry gate to the mineral feeders, but now the cows would not use the mineral feeders because, you guessed it, they would not go under the low-hanging back rub. So, I brought them in to the mineral feeder pen from the opposite gate and forced them to go out by going under the back rub which they initially ducked. After that introduction to the back rub, they now casually walk under the back rub and get their fly control treatment as they come in to lick the mineral. This eliminated having to move mineral feeders on our place.


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## vhaby

Likely you figured this out. I forgot to mention that a large pen area that leads into the mineral feeder pen has three gates. One opens to the west pasture, one opens to the east pasture, and only one of these is open to the cows at one time. The third gate with the back rub hung across the opening is constantly open to the mineral feeders.


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## NDVA HAYMAN

When I was raising yearlings (quit last Sept ) I always kept the mineral feeders away from the water tanks. If the mineral feeders were near the tank, the cattle would take in the minerals, drink some water and then lay down at the tank. By moving the mineral feeders to the opposite side of the cell or pasture, they were forced to move across it and graze on their way. I also move the feeders with a sheet of heavy thick plastic and could pull them anywhere I wanted to. Kind of like a sleigh. Just my thoughts. Mike


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## prairie

I have several mineral feeders, similar to the Pride Of the Farm ones, that we move on a daily basis. Lag bolted them to treated 4x4 skids, and then screw in a set of eye lags in on each end of the skids. I can easily tow up to three fully loaded feeders with my Yamaha 450, using a set of chains built for just that purpose. I'll try and get some pictures to post up tonight.


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