Fall is the season where the year’s hard work finally pays dividends for those in agriculture, and you want to do all you can to make sure you capture as much profit as possible. Whether you’re getting equipment ready to combine corn or getting show calves prepared for those fall sales, you are putting in extra effort to make sure you capture the most value for your products.
Labor Day weekend typically kicks off the fall sale season for show calf prospects throughout the Midwest and Plains states. Calves are turned out in green runs. They’ve been fed, washed and clipped, and they look their best. One way to help them continue looking and feeling their best during the fall sale season is to provide them a blue Vita Charge® Stress Tub HEAT®.
The Vita Charge Stress Tub HEAT is a companion product to the popular Vita Charge Stress Tub. In addition to the Amaferm® to help with nutrient intake, digestibility and absorption and MOS to trap and expel harmful pathogens, the blue HEAT tub also contains plant extracts to help cattle maintain their core body temperature. And when they are not putting forth extra energy to cool themselves off, they can use that energy to convert feed to gain.
“The biggest thing to remember about the HEAT component is it is designed to regulate body temperature. With the inconsistent weather this time of year, it helps maintain a constant temperature, providing more consistency,” said Blaine Rodgers, Show Livestock Business Development and Field Support at BioZyme Inc.
In addition to keeping the calves’ temperature regulated and helping them gain, the Amaferm in the Stress Tubs helps reduce the stress the animals incur. Due to their size, they are convenient enough to put into a creep area, where the calves can go find comfort if they need it after an afternoon of unfamiliar potential buyers walking through their pens.
“While your calves might be acclimated to heat, they are not conditioned to people going through them all the time, stressing them from that regard, which increases their temperature and their movement. Pasture sales and even viewing cattle for future online sales mean a steady stream of people, which puts extra stress of people looking at them all the time, which is where the Stress Tubs with HEAT play an extra important role,” Rodgers said.
Bodee Schlipf, Tree Lane Farms, El Paso, Ill., has been using the Stress Tubs on his sale cattle for the past five years. Since the new Stress Tubs with HEAT were introduced this summer, he said he’s been using them exclusively, with plans to use them through their fall sales.
“As we’re getting ready for sales, the Stress Tubs keeping them eating, helps them keep their bloom and helps with hair quality and growth,” Schlipf said. “The Stress Tubs with HEAT seem to keep our calves cooler, out eating more often. They seem to get out of the shade; they don’t seem to be hunkered down near as much.”
When your pay day comes only once or twice a year, it makes sense to ensure you’ll get the most profit possible. Investing in the Vita Charge Stress Tub HEAT keeps your calves feeling healthy and looking healthy so you can see some healthy returns.
