Many, if not most, cattlemen are unknowingly poisoning their cattle with expensive mineral supplements. This is something most PCC™ Cooperative Producers and many PCC customers first became aware of in 2020 and 2021.

I don’t know when commercial mineral mixtures first became available, but when I was growing up, we only fed salt and bone meal — and I don’t think we fed bone meal year-round. We never had to deal with any sickness or health issues. That, unfortunately, has not been the case for the last 40+ years.

I have talked with several producers who routinely dealt with poor conception rates, pink eye, foot rot, pneumonia, etc., etc. When they stopped feeding their expensive mineral supplement, most of those problems all but disappeared. They were unknowingly poisoning their cattle.

According to the late Tom Swerczek, DVM, the four minerals that are causing the biggest problems are Cadmium, Nitrates, Potassium and Sulphur. Cadmium is an extremely toxic heavy metal that should NEVER be present in any feed supplement. However, because of price, most mineral ingredients are coming out of China — and nearly all of them contain Cadmium.

The biggest manufacturers of mineral supplements in the U.S. get their mineral ingredients from China. Before you purchase another bag of mineral supplement, make sure none of the ingredients came from China. There are a few good mineral packages — but I don’t think you will find them at your local Co-op.

Most of our PCC Cooperative Producers are feeding simple sea salt from Kansas and/or Utah as their mineral supplement. Some are mixing in some Redmond conditioner and/or natural soda. This has proven to be much cheaper and more effective than the commercial mineral supplements we used to feed — and it is not poisoning our cattle!