How to supplement micronutrients for ruminants！！！

Trace elements, as essential nutrients in the animal's body, play an extremely important role in life activities, and excessive, insufficient, or unbalanced intake can reduce animal growth, production, and breeding performance.

The main methods of supplementation for ruminant micronutrient deficiencies are direct and indirect methods. The direct methods of supplementation are mainly mixed into supplements, subcutaneous and intramuscular injections of inorganic salt solutions, etc., while the indirect methods of supplementation are mainly "soil fertilization", etc. All of them can be used to prevent or improve ruminant micronutrient deficiencies, improve ruminants' productivity and immunity, and increase economic benefits.

1. Direct supplementation method.

(1) Premixes.

The addition of micronutrient premixes to the concentrates fed to the animals is the simplest, most effective and most suitable method of supplementation. With this method of trace element supplementation, the animal can ensure that it receives the right amount of trace elements by feeding on other feeds. The advantages of adding micronutrient premixes to concentrates are that they provide a comprehensive range of micronutrients and that the amount of micronutrients added can be artificially controlled.

(2) Injection of inorganic salt solutions.

Inorganic salt solution injection is a common method to supplement trace elements in animals, and the injection site is usually intramuscular or subcutaneous. At present, subcutaneous injection of long-lasting sunshine to ruminants is a good method of sunshine supplementation, compared with other methods of sunshine supplementation, this method is safe and reliable and has a long validity period. It has been reported that the intramuscular injection of 5 ml of a mixture of sodium tannin and vitamin E into Altai sheep, 15-20 days after breeding, resulted in a 34.2% increase in the cover rate of ewes. According to Gunnar's study, long-acting sunlight injections given to grazing sheep in the autumn resulted in increasing serum code levels in sheep for more than a year.

(3) Putting in rumen pellets.

Intra-rumen pellets are mainly made from raw materials such as drill powder, sunshine powder, and iron powder, which are pressed under high pressure. Intra-rumen pellets are put into the rumen of ruminants as a simple and economical method of supplementing with trace elements such as drill and code. The advantages of this method are that it is simple, convenient, effective for a long time, effective, and does not cause toxic reactions. It has been reported that sheep can be prevented from being deficient for at least 3 years when pellets made from code and iron powder are put into the rumen of sheep at the same time.

(4) Controlled-release glass pellets.

Controlled-release glass pellets are generally composed of alkaline phosphates and contain various trace elements essential for ruminants. The advantages of controlled-release glass pills are that they are simple and economical, can be used to prevent micronutrient deficiencies in the body, and do not cause any toxicity or side effects to the body.

(5) Lick bricks.

Lick bricks are made by adding a variety of trace elements to a high concentration of salt and mixing it with certain plastic agents to make soluble plastic lick bricks to be placed in pasture or pen troughs for the animals to lick freely. However, lick bricks are affected by rain and can cause loss of trace elements, and there is no way to control the true intake of trace elements. Generally, depending on the purpose of supplementary feeding and different materials and methods of production, there are various licking bricks made, including composite mineral licking bricks, urea nutritional licking bricks, molasses nutritional licking bricks, and so on. It has been reported that the composite mineral lick bricks developed by an academy of sciences can significantly increase the daily weight gain of cattle and sheep, the amount of wool produced by sheep, and the amount of milk produced by cows. The level of trace elements added has a direct impact on the growth performance and serum biochemical index of lambs.

(6) Drinking water supplementation.

Drinking water supplementation refers to the dissolution of various trace element supplements into drinking water, which is freely consumed by animals to improve the nutritional status of trace elements in the animal's organism. However, the disadvantage is that different animals require different amounts of water, and animals that really need it or are sick often drink very little, while healthy individuals may drink more, especially in summer when it is difficult to grasp the exact dosage of this method.

2. Indirect methods.

This refers to the application of targeted micronutrient fertilizers to the soil and the introduction of soil compensation. In a broad sense, it starts with the root cause of the soil, which not only improves crop yields but also increases the trace element content within the crop and can prevent animal trace element deficiencies from the ground up. For example, the use of micronutrient fertilizers containing copper, selenium, and diamonds in areas with endemic copper, diamond and selenium deficiencies, thus improving pasture and crop yields, can also prevent the occurrence of certain micronutrient deficiencies in local grazing livestock, thus achieving satisfactory results. However, this method can be limited and influenced by a variety of factors, such as local rainfall, season, soil pH, etc., and is time-consuming and labor-intensive.