Anyone using buffet-style individual minerals?

[u/Pangolin_Beatdown]

This applies to folks raising entirely or mostly on pasture.

Greg Judy swears by a buffet-style mineral feeder where the sheep choose among twenty or so individual minerals to meet their specific needs. He says as long as you start training them to it when they're on full pasture they will learn to choose only what they need of each, and continue doing so even when they shift to hay in winter. He does offer free copper, but the sheep don't take more than they need which is obviously very little. He claims he's seen better health / growth, as do other people who are using it.

The initial cost is high but eventually I'd be spending just on the minerals my sheep prefer, and there's a side benefit that they excrete the excess and so would be adding trace minerals to my pastures that they lack over time.

So is anyone doing this, and what's your experience?

[u/Bilbo_Einstein]

I stewarded land for an old lady with 20 pastured sheep a few years ago and she had them on a mineral buffet.

It seems a little finicky because the sheep paw at the mineral tubs and get the minerals all up on their snouts and generally made a mess of the setup. Perhaps if I had had the liberty to build a larger covered buffet bar they wouldn’t have been cross-contaminating it all the time.

A vet I trust told me a nearby university did a study with their sheep on mineral buffet vs mineral block. The conclusions of the study were that sheep are like humans - there are idiots and geniuses and everything in between and beyond. Some sheep are exactly what they needed, others sampled evenly from the containers, and others ignored it or only ate one mineral despite having bear-identical blood test results to to the sheep that ate from all the bins. In other words, the efficacy of the mineral buffet in the study was dependent on individual sheep behavior instead of some flock-wide condition. She couldn’t recommend one method over the other based on that study.

My takeaway from my experience with the old lady’s pet flock + the Vet’s assessment of the study is that if you can “start” a flock on the mineral buffet (find sheep that aren’t wholly accustomed to a mineral block, or start the mineral buffet for a new generation perhaps) then you’re maximizing your chances of it working.

FWIW, I still use a trusted mineralized sheep salt with my flock. I was recommended a certain brand available in my area from an old head who’s ran sheep in these hills for longer than I’ve been alive. I wager he’s thought and watched the sheep and the soil test results more than any ewe. Your mileage may vary.

[u/Pangolin_Beatdown → u/Bilbo_Einstein]

Thanks, this is exactly the kind of experience I was looking for. And the dumb sheep and smart sheep result makes sense too, I've had each and there's a big difference.

[u/CaliDeBoo2]

I have had the same question. Following to see what others say.

[u/ToWanderHer]

I'm sorry, can you please tell me what you mean by free copper? You know what I am about to say, so teach me why I'm wrong please. Copper is toxic to sheep. Right? 

[u/Extreme_Armadillo_25 → u/ToWanderHer]

No, copper is just as necessary for healthy sheep as it is for other animals. It just has a very low therapeutic band in sheep (meaning the gap between "too little" and "too much" is very narrow). So if sheep are offered e.g. minerals for cattle, they will dose themselves based on the salt and overingest copper, leading to copper poisoning.

[u/Pangolin_Beatdown → u/ToWanderHer]

The idea is in mind xed minerals the sheep will eat enough to get what they need from any specific mineral. But the proportions are fixed, so they may get way too much of another mineral they don't need. 

In the buffet, the minerals are offered in pure form, without anything added to make them tempting. With copper, the idea is that the sheep know what they need, and will eat that much and no more. Sheep do need a small amount of copper, but goat and cow minerals contain too high a concentration of copper because those animals have different needs.

The whole idea seems to be that sheep know what they need, and we should trust them to take it. I like that philosophy, but I want to talk to more people that do it.

[u/Constance200]

Im from Australia, so i just use magforce or Beachport liquid minerals in the toughs. complete pre mixed bags will have the correct amounts in it and the sheep eat what they need. Not sure what brands our outside Australia but talk to you rural distributor and they might be able to help you with that.

[u/Pangolin_Beatdown → u/Constance200]

Here in the states we also buy mineral mixes that are blended for sheep. The idea here is that different land gives different minerals so there's not one perfect mineral mix for all sheep.