Why Does Your Stock Need Salt?

Salt is an essential part of the daily diet of all livestock if they are to perform cost effectively.  It plays a major role in the diet and is essential for efficient feed utilization.  Additionally, it stimulates saliva production, promoting digestion and making fodder more palatable.

Deficiencies are most likely in rapidly growing animals and also in lactating stock.

Salt deficiency can lead to:

• Loss of appetite and poor intakes

• Depressed growth rates in growing and fattening stock

• Poor milk production in lactating livestock

Visible symptoms of salt deficiency are often seen in the form of cravings for salt; drinking urine and the licking of gates, walls, stones and soil are examples of this.

About Electro-Boost

Scours is the primary cause of dairy calf losses in the first month of life and the incidence of scours in the young calf has been shown to significantly affect performance later on. It is well accepted that the primary causes of death amongst these calves is electrolyte loss, dehydration and starvation – not the direct action of any pathogen.

To minimise financial losses, obviously prevention strategies are paramount, however, even in the best-managed herds, neonatal calf diarrhoea may still be problematic. The most important treatment for scouring calves is early, rapid rehydration. Timeous oral electrolyte therapy is critical and, ideally, should be started as soon as diarrhoea is noticed.

Electro-Boost™ is a combination of minerals, carbohydrates, amino acids and probiotics aimed to facilitate rapid recovery by providing dual therapy:

– rehydration and restoration of osmotic balance and

– rebalancing the population of gut microflora disturbed as a result of scours, or from antibiotic treatment, and minimising further gut pathogen colonisation by competing for nutrients and attachment sites.

Electro-Boost™ is bicarbonate free so as not to adversely affect the utilisation of nutrients from milk or milk replacer fed in conjunction with Electro-Boost™ therapy. In addition Electro-Boost™ contains soluble fibre to aid in the binding of gut contents, slowing down the rate of water loss and assisting in alleviation of the condition.

Let Electro-Boost™ be the foundation of your strategy to combat financial losses from scours.