MLS Tubs Dealer Guide

MLS #12 Breeder Mineral

What Our Dealer’s Mean to Us at MLS

We are proud of our MLS Dealer Network and when you become a dealer you become a valued member of our team. We want to invest in your MLS tub business by providing resources to aid your dealer team in helping get the best products for the producers you serve.

We understand the challenges livestock producers face, so it only makes sense for us to support our dealers who are their trusted advisors when it comes to making a supplement choice. Our dealer guide is designed to quickly reference a multitude of information that will be useful at the counter for making tub sales. This dealer guide also serves as a supplement to your dealer trainings provided by your MLS Territory Manager. For more questions reach out to your MLS Territory Manager anytime!

Tub Types

Low Moisture Tubs:

• Low Moisture Tubs are produced by mixing dehydrated molasses blends with dry ingredients (protein, vitamin, mineral, etc.) then cooling which hardens into solidified final product.

• Due to the manufacturing process the term “cooked” is often used to describe low moisture tubs.

• Removing water creates a hardened product that softens as the surface attracts moisture from the environement thereby allowing a limited, but consistent consumption.

Poured Tubs and Blocks:

• Poured tubs and blocks are manufactured by mixing liquid byproducts and dry ingredients, then adding a chemical hardener to get the product to solidify.

• Due to this manufacturing process there is still a large amount of moisture in the product.

• Consumption tends to be much higher & more variable with poured compared to low moisture tubs due to block hardness as the major limiter.

• Higher consumption of these products while often lower cost per tub or per pound, will acutally end up costing more per day because overall consumption is higher.

• The most accurate way to calculate the actual cost of a supplement is to figure the cost per head per day for each product.

Pressed Blocks:

• Pressed blocks are manufactured by blending dry ingredients, liquid ingredients and binders. That blend of ingredients is dispensed into a pressure chamber and pressed to form the block.

• After the compression cycle is complete, the now pressed block is released from the chamber and ready for shirink wrapping, packaging, labeling and palletizing.

How Can You Use Low Moisture Tubs?

Winter

• Protein supplemenation for dormant or stored forages

• Help maintain cow body condition

• Delivery of mineral for cattle running on winter pastures and small grain forages

Fall

• Weaning and receiving supplementation

• Delivery of gut health additives for stressed calves

• Protein supplements to help add or maintain body condition before winter months

• Nutritional support during calving through lactation and rebreeding

• Mineral to support nutritional needs of spring forages

• Delivery of critical supplemental minerals like magnesium

• Delivery of fly control

Spring

• Mineral Supplementation.

• Delivery of fly control

• Protein Supplementation for late season forages going dormant before fall or when drought conditions exist

Summer

The Benefits of Low Moisture Supplementation

What this Means for Producers

Key Supplemental Nutrition:

Low moisture tubs allow mixing of dry ingredients with dehydrated molasses to create a highly palatable supplement that can cover your herds many needs:

• Protein, Vitamin, Mineral

• Additonal additives for targeted performance improvements

Improved Forage Utilization (more energy from your forages) :

With self fed MLS tubs, continual access to small incremental amounts of protein will increase forage utilization by:

• Improved ruminal fiber fermentation provides increased nutrient supplies by releasing more energy from forages

• Speeds up fiber digestion and rate of passage allowing for increased forage intake and greater nutrient supplies from higher consumption

• Allows for extracting more nutrition from lower quality forage supplies

Consistent Consumption:

• Producers can count on every animal regularly consuming neccesary and desired nutrients being supplemented

• Regardless of weather conditions, time a producer has to feed or events in the production cycle such as calving, working or weaning; cattle will always be getting needed supplement

• This allows for producers to know how long supplement will last and will also help to provide producers with accurate supplement costs when looking ahead at the intake for the upcoming season

Grazing Management Tool:

When trying to extract maximum nutrition out of your forage base MLS Tubs can help manage your pastures by placing tubs in areas that you want your cattle to graze. With highly palatable MLS Tubs cattle will mitigate to areas where tubs are located. Strategically placing tubs in locations your cattle don’t normally graze can get them to utilize a larger area within a pasture so no forage is wasted.

NO Water, NO Fillers, NO Waste:

Low moisture tubs mix dry ingredient with molasses ingredients and are then dehydrated.The cooking process yields a low consumption, nutrient dense product. This also creates a highly weatherproof supplement delivery system.

• Producers don’t have to worry about damage or lost supplement due to rain, snow, mud, wind or other enviromental conditions

• Even when supplement gets wet you don’t risk damaging the integrity or quality of the supplement

Available All Day, Every Day, To Every Animal :

Low moisture tubs are a huge advantage by having continuous availability 24/7.

• Every animal in your herd has access to get supplementation with a self fed offering, opposed to fighting over dry feed when the feed truck comes

• Unrestricted availability also allows animals that may have higher nutritional needs like timid, sick, younger, or sometimes older cows to always have access to supplementation

• With continuous availabilty this allows you to better manage through inclement weather events that make it difficult to access pastures in a timely manner

Low Input, Maximum Benefit :

Low input is a proactive way to help avoid any sort of nutrtional “catch up” that may be required if your forage base runs short on nutrients during the grazing period. The first little bit of supplement will make the biggest difference!

• With forages varying throughout the grazing season MLS tubs will help extract as much energy and nutrients from your forage base as possible

Low Cost Per Head Per Day:

MLS low moisture tubs can only be consumed by licking and this physical form of delivery maintains a low consistent intake that can be easily managed by the number & location of tubs provided in a pasture.

• A guarantee of low, steady intake will ensure you a predictable low cost per day

• It is easy to budget supplement costs by determining the number of animals you feed, how long you will supplement and multiply by estimated daily intake which can help you manage input costs

Uniform Consumption:

Uniform and consistent intake allows producers to predictably achieve targeted consumption and improved cattle performance.

• Every animal, every lick, every day helps deliver the same amount of supplement to meet daily requirements across your entire herd

• Uniform consumption provides accurate delivery of feed additives that help enhance fiber digestion, fly control, improve gut health or proper immune function in stressed cattle

The Power of Palatability:

Highly palatable MLS Tubs allow cattle to consistently seek out and consume tubs so they can access proper amounts of nutrition from specifically formulated supplements.

• Key additives and supplemental nutrition are great for enhancing cattle peformance but only if cattle will consume them in the right amounts. Combining key performance additives into MLS tubs achieves the expected delivery and performance benefits for producers.

Reduced Labor & Time Spent Feeding:

Low moisture tubs save you trips to the pasture, manpower to feed and precious time

• Self fed supplements require fewer trips for delivery and therefore decrease the need for additional time, labor and fuel required by hand-fed supplements.

• MLS tubs only need to be delivered to the pastures ranging from every 10 to 20 days, with no need of additional feeding equipment and minimal storage facilities. It’s all contained in one tub.

The Customer Discovery Process

Before we can ever even make a product reccomendation we need to assess producer needs and goals for their livestock. Once we have mores specific information we are better prepared to fit customers with products that will be best suited for their needs and goals.

Some Questions to Ask...

Q: Q: Q: Q: Q: Q: Q: Q: Q:

What type of forage source do you currently run your cattle on?

EX: Native pasture, winter wheat, Fescue, crop residues, round bales, etc.

How do you currently supplement your livestock?

EX: Do you supplement protein with dry feed? Do you feed additional hay during the winter?

What vitamin and mineral sources do you currently rely on in your nutrtition program?

EX: Loose mineral? Salt? Etc.

What is the current body condition of your cattle?

Ex: Fleshy, moderate cover, etc./ Are they a BCS 5-6?

What are the goals of your operation?

EX: Cow/Calf? Seedstock? Stockers? Feeders? Do you utilize A.I or E.T. work? Etc.

When do you typically calve? Spring or Fall?

Do you struggle with any specific nutrition challenges in your cow herd?

EX: Low weaning weights? Low conception rates? Stress and sickness in calves? Etc.

Do you have any specific operational challenges currently being faced? Specific Production or performance challenges?

EX: Labor and time to feed cattle regularly? Getting specific nutrients into stressed cattle? Cattle not utilizing entire pasture while grazing?

Do you run your cattle with other species?

EX: Horses, Sheep, Goats?

Product Reccomendations

A quick flow chart to help narrow down the product category you are pointing your customers to as you are discovering the needs of their supplement program.

Supplement Cow Herd

Supplement Stockers, Yearlings or Seedstock

Supplement Calves

Cattle are on Low Quality, Dormant or Stored Forages?

Cattle are on High Quality Pasture or Forages?

Additional Body Condition is Needed?

Body Condition is Good, but Specific Nutrients are Needed?

Calves Are Still On Cows?

Calves are at risk for stressful situations, or transitions in the production cycle?

The Cost Question

The cost per head day equation is one of the best illustration’s of the true cost of a feed program

The Common Tub Talk

FAQ’s at the Counter

How do you know my livestock will only consume the amount that is on the label? Will they consume more than that?

A: A: A: A: A:

The best way to accurately judge consumption is to keep track for at least 90 days. A producer will need to know the number of head being fed, number of tubs put out and number of days on tubs. This a key time to point out the reccomended stocking rate on the product label, as the stocking rate can effect consumption.

Half a pound a day does not seem like enough feed for my cows? Does that give them anything that they need?

We have to remember and remind our customers that tubs are supplement to fill in gaps in the diet, not a full feed. It is a small amount that will help to increase rumen activity, increase forage utilization, provide needed mineral and other benefits at different times in the production cycle when they are relying on a forage source as the base of their program.

Wow that seems like a high price for a tub? That seems like a pricey way to supplement my cow herd.

Cost per Head per Day is key in breaking down the sticker shock cost and getting a producer to see the value of a supplement program by the small investment daily supplement is.

IE..$145/200lb=$0.72/lb

$0.72x0.33=$0.24/hd/d

Isn’t it easier to supplement with a bag of loose mineral than trying to put tubs out?

Although loose mineral has always been the traditional way to provide mineral to your cow herd this is a very inconsistent method. The palatability is much lower than tubs, it gets wasted by the weather compared to zero waste with a low-moisture tub when comparing cost per head per day tubs are acutally a more economical input.

Why do I need to feed mineral when I put brown “trace mineral” blocks out?

Not all tubs are created equal and producers can ask a lot of questions when it comes to a MLS low moisture supplement program. We have compiled some commonly asked question and a few answers for you to be prepared Q: Q: Q: Q: Q:

Trace “Mineral” blocks are about 90-95% salt. They have a very small amount of mineral in them that will not meet the NRC requirements for mineral.