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What our Customers SayI have been using Minsups' STARTRIGHT for my calves since it was first introduced. We have never seen calves just born come on so well" MR PETER RICHARDS from Haverfordwest. MR PETER RICHARDS from Haverfordwest MR REES of Southwood Farm, Dyfed, is one of Minsups long-standing customers who first started buying Minsups products in 1975. Clearly pleased with the products and the service. Mr George Corsar of James Ingram & Son, Aberdeenshire The above customers have had bother with scours and pneumonia in young suckler calves. They had previously tried various methods of avoiding these difficulties with no success. This is until they started to use Minsups STOCKVIM. Both have now used STOCKVIM for a number of years with Mr Kelman using it for about 14 years. STOCKVIM is fed for 2 months prior to calving at 75g per cow per day. Since starting to use STOCKVIM both customers report that calves are now free from scour and pneumonia and are much healthier. Mr Kelman also reported that his cows have been free from staggers. I was speaking to Ian Johnston and his father, from Fintray, Aberdeen, who both feel that the MAG BLOCK FLY is a great success. Their farmland is situated alongside a river and where there are numerous trees, which provide ideal conditions for flies to breed. On one occasion, at the height of the fly season, when it was warm and damp they were inspecting their cattle in the handling pens and noticed that there were no flies near the cow’s udders despite the fact that they were swarming overhead. The farmers were delighted to report to me that none of their cows had been affected with mastitis. Jim Stewart Gerrit van den Berg works full-time for a large manufacturing company but back at home he also runs a small farm. Gerrit keeps about thirty Swifter breeding ewes and lambs on his farm near Ermelo as well as around eight pedigree beef cattle and calves. His breeding ewes are all pedigree and free of maedi-visna and scrapie. An important benefit with these sheep is the so-called Myomax-gold-gene, a gene producing a heavier-muscled animal with leaner meat. Gerrit wants to keep as many of the ewe lambs as possible in order to increase his flock to fifty breeding ewes by next year while the rams are mostly sold as breeding tups. The van den Berg sheep are kept outside from April and are taken in again in January. For over seven years the farm has used Minsups Blocks including Sheep Block and, during the lambing season, a Dextro Block for the pregnant ewes. In 2005, Gerrit agreed to participate in a FLY-BLOCK trial, which he was happy to do because of the difficulties in controlling Fly Strike. For trial purposes, one group of sheep was given FLY-BLOCK and an identical group used the standard SHEEP BLOCK but Gerrit noticed little difference until he came to trim his animals’ feet. “This is always a hot and sweaty job and you attract flies, particularly on your face.” says Gerrit. “With the group of sheep eating the FLY-BLOCK, I noticed that there were no flies bothering them.” Having finished the trial, Gerrit was convinced that FLY-BLOCK was the ideal solution and since then has used it regularly. Over the past couple of years, the farm has had no sheep with Fly Strike and the product also appears to work well against Blue Tongue. “I hear from other sheep breeders around this area that sometimes half the flock can be affected but last summer I just had two cases of it among my sheep.” “Half-way through September, I replaced the FLY-BLOCK with standard SHEEP BLOCKs but after some very good weather, I had five sheep down with BlueTongue.” Delighted with the results from using FLY-BLOCK, Gerrit now also uses it for his beef cattle: “In two to three days, you start to notice a smell of herbs around your sheep and with my cattle, it takes about one and a half to two weeks.”   |