It comes both ways, and also in the pure form (feed grade magnessium oxide) that can be mixed with salt on the farm. It tastes bad, so its hard to get them to eat enough of it.
As to me personally, I dont use blocks of anything. There's a lot of reasons but mostly its to teach the cows that when they see me they come running to get it. With grass tetany season, I usually use a feeder to make sure they get it all the time but otherwise I hand feed them their salt and mineral mix. I've had some real train wrecks over the years with minerals so I get a custom mix from a mineral dealer. Its not that much more expensive (11.00 for a 50 pound bag) compared to generic mineral mixes and I know its balanced to my specific farm.
As to grass tetany it doesnt matter so much as you want to suppliment at the full rate. Just too much variance otherwise. Pastures that have been fertilized with nitogen and or potash will have more problems. Pastures with highly available calcium (near neutral pH) will have more problems. As to other minerals, it matters a lot more. I've got 2 farms less than 7 miles apart but in two different watershed. In looking at liver and blood samples its been rather amazing the difference in copper and selenium levels in the cows. Thats why I like the custom mineral blend, he can mix it farm specific.
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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