On this Instagram posting from Spain, you see Jesús Rodriguez presenting BasisFeeder and how he gives his Salers cattle access to salt blocks from the feeder. BasisFeeder can be used for various types of mineral feed supplements. The physiologically best and cheapest form of mineral supplements are powdered, meaning a mixture of mineral salts. If these mineral salts comprise one third fodder salt (NaCl), which we recommend, you will have an intake of 60-80 gram per day for young stock and 100-150 gram per day for adult cattle. Animals both needs and like salt, which therefore stimulate the intake but also regulatees the intake quite precisely since it taste very bad when your body have had enough. Other macro and micro minerals can therefore be contained in the mineral feed suppelment in relation to the salt. BasisFeeder can also be used for fixating round buckets with molassed minerals, which in this way stands protected from sun, wind and rain. BasisFeeder is also good for sheep, llamas, camels, deer, and dairy cattle.

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Et opslag delt af Jesús Rodriguez | MENTOR Desarrollo personal y Ganadería (@jesusregenera)

Contact our Spanish BasisFeeder dealer via email: mapiberia@gmail.com, or phone: (34) 920 03 01 06.

To help dealers comply with packaging regulations, our dealer webshop has just been updated with information about the packaging that MicroFeeder products are delivered with. You can see the information in the webshop by selecting ORDERING in the top menu (requires login as a retailer), find the desired product in the list, and select 'More info'. It states which type of packaging is used per standard when delivering the product, the weight of the packaging and its EU recycling code.

Companies that market packaged products in EU have according to EU's Packaging Directive (94/62/EF) the responsibility for the used packaging, and the requirements are being tightened in line with the implementation of objectives to increase the reuse and recycling of wastes, rather than disposal in landfill.

MicroFeeder uses a minimum of packaging. Pallets with our products are generally applied with a shrink cap plastic cover, the main purpose of which is to ensure that the goods stand stably on the pallets during transport, and also provide protection against dust and rain, etc. Spare parts are usually packed together with other products and do not require any special packaging, alternatively stretch film is used.

Since autumn 2023, bluetongue (BT) has been widespread in ruminants in Central Europe. The viral disease is very costly and causes, among other things, miscarriages in pregnant animals and impairments that are reflected in the statistics as a greatly increased mortality rate. There are reports that in certain European regions the number of animals dying by themselves is two to three times higher than normal due to BT. Cattle and other ruminants can survive an infection with BT, but their productivity will decrease.

For Johanna and Gerrit Arendse, Hof Arendse-Peters GbR in Lower Saxony, BT has confirmed the importance of precise mineral allocation for the immune status of cows. Since they started precise mineral allocation, they have registered a fifth fewer cases of disease in dairy cows, in addition to improvements in cell count, reproduction and performance.

MicroFeeder stocks 3 products in blue - Pitstop, BasisFeeder and MineralRocker, which are seen here packed and ready to be sent to a customer, and now the Blue BasisFeeder has got its own product number. For several years, we have supplied blue BasisFeeder to a number of customers, and we must recognize that the demand is persistent. Therefore, we now give the blue BasisFeeder its own product number, GTIN13 code, etc.

You can also have our products delivered in other colors than those that are kept in stock.

To still optimize the quality, we have made a few changes to the design. The new version can be seen on the left of the picture. Compared to the previous version on the right, it is particularly noticeable that the power cable enters the trough a few cm lower and a weld seam is visible under the cable gland. The power cable is therefore less exposed to damage. The changes also mean that the electrical and electronic components can be prepared as a single unit that is then fitted into the trough afterwards, which means improved quality and lowered production costs. In addition, the new version has a much better adaptation of the bottom plate.

Anders Larsson is a dairy farmer in southern Sweden, and runs a herd of approx. 70 Holstein-Friesian dairy cows + young stock. The cows are milked with a Lely robot. In Sweden, cattle farms are obliged to use grazing, in southern Sweden a minimum of 4 months, and this probably contributes to the fact that you see more animals on grass in Sweden than in, for example, Denmark.

After seeing the CombiFeeder at Borgeby Fältdagar in June, Anders Larsson acquired one to replace an 8-year-old and worn out BasisFeeder. In short, he is very satisfied with the CombiFeeder, and it works exactly as intended, including the ability to keep the minerals protected from rain and dirt, and of course to avoid spillage. Anders Larsson wants to use granulated mineral feed, as he does not trust that the animals will get enough minerals when using molasses minerals, especially not that all animals will have their needs for minerals covered in this way, and furthermore the molasses minerals are more expensive to use.

The CombiFeeder was delivered in a jute bag and assembly was easy and hassle free. Anders Larsson emphasizes that the CombiFeeder is easy to handle due to the built-in handles in the troughs, and the feeder is easy to fill with minerals. He noticed that his animals wanted to push the rubber cover down into the troughs and therefore installed boards to prevent this. Due to the wooden post, the feeder stays solidly on the ground, i.e. the animals have not been able to tip it around and waste the minerals.

All in all, Anders Larsson is very satisfied with his CombiFeeder and does not hesitate to recommend it to others.

Already at 20ºC and a humidity of 90%, the first signs of heat stress can be seen in the dairy cows, which i.a. means decreased feed intake, decreased milk yield and fat percentage, decreased fertility, and higher cell counts.

Some of the most important measures to counteract heat stress include ensuring the cows get enough sodium, and sources of this can be both fodder salt and sodium bicarbonate. You can allocate fodder salt and sodium bicarbonate through the TMR. A smarter way, however, is to let the cows themselves eat the extra amount they need, since they can unconsciously sense that they need more sodium and therefore look for sodium cotaining feed they can eat.

By allocating fodder salt and /or sodium bicarbonate via PitstopBASIS feeders, an overdose is avoided, as the need for extra sodium varies from cow to cow. It is not because fodder salt or sodium bicarbonate is particularly expensive, but the problem is that it can affect the metabolic balance and for instance cause lack of other minerals. At the same time, PitstopBASIS ensures a hygienic allocation method rather than placing a trough on the barn floor which the cows invariably contaminate with manure and urine.

By placing a PitstopBASIS feeder near a water trough, you give the cows optimal opportunities to "kill two birds with one stone", as plenty of water is also an important measure to counteract heat stress

BasisFeeder is a mineral feeder for cattle and sheep. It is suitable even for cattle with large horns. BasisFeeder protects expensive mineral supplements from rainwater and dung etc. by help of a rubber cover, which the animals push up with their heads when they eat.

BasisFeeder has been patented for innovative details, including ingenious features that include:

• The design of the feed trough itself is like a truncated cone with very steep outer walls with an even and smooth surface. This makes the feeder almost impossible to turn around for the animals, since they cannot get hold with their muzzle/nose or other.
• The inner walls are similarly steep, which makes the inner volume large compared to the outer size.
• The special triangular form, reuleaux triangular inspired, with round corners makes the dimensions of the feeder small in comparison to its huge capacity of 74 litres volume. This is a bigger volume than similar feeder types seen in the US with a diameter of 110 cm! In addition, the triangular form makes the feed trough have a max width of 80 cm, meaning it can be delivered on standard pallets - delivery costs means a lot for the final product costs, and the design of BasisFeeder minimises these.

MineralRocker is for mineral feed supplementation during grazing, suitable for cattle (without long horns), sheep and horses. The feeder has with a weighed and rounded bottom a self-raising effect. It avoids that expensive mineral feed supplements are being polluted with dung and urine, and it protects against rain water that otherwise would make the supplements clutter up in a cake, hard as concrete. A high front lip prevents spill of minerals.

Free choice mineral supplementation is by far the physiologically most optimal way of supplementing grazing livestock with minerals, since they in this way get a needed intake. The salt content in free-choice supplements is a precise regulator of the intake and secures that no animal will get any luxury consumption.

Economically, using a mineral feeder like MineralRocker is by far the cheapest way of ensuring grazing livestocks' need for mineral supplementation - if you are in doubt, you can make a calculation with MineralCalculator - see here an ealier newspost with some examples.

With Pitstop^PLUS, you can dose 4 mm pellets individually to selected cows in a given period in relation to the calving date, for instance to CloseUp dry cows the last 2 weeks before expected calving. Up till now, we have only recommended PitstopPLUS used with granulated, dry and loose mineral feed or supplementary feed with a particle size of up to 2 mm and in typical quantities below 500 grams per cow per day.

The use of 4mm pellets is made possible by changes in the dosing unit, including the use of a stronger motor.

Feeding 4 mm pellets expands the application possibilities for Pitstop^PLUS, as a number of feed additives can be advantageously given in this form, e.g. calcium binders and rumen-protected amino acids, especially because they must be given in amounts from 500 grams per cow per day and up to several kg.

CombiFeeder troughs are designed so that they can be used as practical feed troughs inside horse stables, as they can be mounted on a wall with four screws. The trough has a volume of 45 liters and is ideal for allocating, for example, roughage such as silage or other. The troughs have practical handles that make them easy to handle and particularly useful for feeding horses in the paddock.

CombiFeeder troughs are made of durable and UV-protected plastic, which of course is approved for food.

Many livestock breeders prefer to give their grazing livestock access to mineral supplementation in the form of round or squared buckets with molasses minerals. Molasses minerals / mineral blocks typically cost twice as much per kg compared to granulated minerals (loose, dry mixtures of mineral salts), but the buckets can just be placed on the pasture as they are - or is that a good idea?

The problem is that the molasses minerals have a firmness which is ideal for ensuring an envisaged intake per animal per day, but this firmness changes as soon as they are exposed to normal weather. In the sun and wind, the mass becomes dry and very hard, and the animals cannot lick up the amount of minerals that was intended. In rainy weather, the mass is softened and there will be a soup of molasses and rainwater with hundreds of drowned insects on the surface of the mass, which is so soft that a dominant animal can eat the whole bucket of the tasty and sweet mass, and the rest of the herd will not get the minerals they need.

CombiFeeder builds on MicroFeeder's experience and expertise in developing, producing and marketing optimal and innovative mineral feeders for cattle, sheep and horses. The CombiFeeder is an innovation of a feeder, as it is made up of feed troughs that can be configured in different ways and offers versatile application possibilities.

When designing the mineral feeder, climate and environment were taken into account. It is delivered in six parts to be transported as compactly as possible. Delivery takes place in reusable hessian bags, and the assembly kits are also delivered in a small hessian bag.

Get more details about CombiFeeder ....

The number of cattle in the European Union is declining with about 1% per year, but the production volume of dairy and beef products is fairly stable, and in the case of dairy products even slightly increasing. The EU population drinks less milk but consumes more and more cheese and functional dairy food ingredients. Organic dairy farming has reached 3.5% of the production in EU, and is increasing, which means that an increasing number of livestock would be grazing in the future, since this is a legal requirement for achieving organic farming certification. Robotic milking is increasing in countries, where family dairy farms sizes prevail, but is of reducing or less importance in countries with the largest herd sizes. The European Commission states that “In the next 10 years, EU milk production will continue providing sustainable solutions to dairy farmers, climate and society.” The number of sheep is declining, but apparently compensated by increasing productivity. Statistics about horse breeding is less accessible, but it is the impression that the number of horses is relatively stable.

These conclusions are based on analysing up to date statistics as well as forecasts prepared by mainly the European Commission, Eurostat, FAO, and the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR).

Read the entire analysis....

Hydroxy trace minerals have a crystalized structure with covalent bonds. These bonds explain the high stability after mixing it into mineral feed supplements or other, and the low solubility of at neutral pH-levels results in less interaction in the upper gastrointestinal tract. Hydroxy trace minerals are mainly used as a source of copper, zinc and manganese where a high bio-availability is envisaged, since this is on the level of that of organic microminerals, and in some cases even higher.

We have updated our list of selected feed additives with hydroxy trace elements:

PitstopBASIS feeders are fitted on steel bars with the small mounting bracket in this French dairy herd with cows of the Normande breed. The amount of minerals in the TMR feed is reduced with 25%, and the group of 50-60 cows are in return given access to extra minerals on a free-choice basis from 2 PitstopBASIS feeders. This method accommodates cows with higher needs and avoids other cows being overfed with minerals. See an animated image montage from the herd here:

Bovine tuberculosis is a highly infectious disease of cattle which devastates thousands of farming businesses annually. It is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis, which can also infect and cause TB in badgers, deer, goats, pigs and many other mammals, including humans. It is a chronic disease which can take years to develop.

While most European countries are declared disease free when it comes to bovine tuberculosis, there is some distribution of the disease in PT, ES, IT, EE, BU, IE, RO and CR. In Great Britain, bovine tuberculosis has a high distribution, and more than 11% of herds tested positive in 2021, unfortunately with a steeply upward trend as only about 6% of herds tested positive in 2010.

Badgers and wild deer are the main wild animal species considered to be a TB risk to grazing cattle. Farmers worry that for instance badgers would be attracted to eat from the cattles' mineral supplementation and in this way spread the disease via mineral supplements, including mineral feeders.

In order to make it possible to supplement grazing livestock with minerals without worry for contamination with bovine tuberculosis via wild animals like badgers, we have configured our Pitstop feeder for this use. We call it Pitstop^GRAZING. Pitstop feeders are characterised by being mounted some distance above the ground (the eating hole should be about 0.9 - 1 metre from the ground for adult cattle), and in order to make that possible in a grazing paddock, Pitstop^GRAZING comes with a 2-metres long mounting post in galvanised steel, which can be digged into the ground. Casting it into concrete is also possible, and if you wish to be able to move the feeder among paddocks, it is possible to buy a cast-in fitting for each paddock. Pitstop^GRAZING comes per default with a small mounting bracket.

Pitstop feeders are designed to prevents rainwater from getting inside the feeder, which would make the minerals form hard lumps. All external surfaces are inclined and the feeder has a completely closed design that includes a front flap covering the eating hole. Also, while you can place buckets etc. with molassed minerals inside a Pitstop feeder, we recommend using free-choice loose supplements, which are salt based and not sweet, and which therefore may not be attractive for wild animals at all. Contact us if you are interested, or find the nearest of our dealers at our webpage.

Most of our products, for example a MineralRokker on a grass field, are quite visible to passers-by, and thus potentially good "advertising pillars". We offer to place our customers' logo or other on our products . The image shows two examples: A Milkivit sticker is stuck on a MineralRocker top, and a Timac Agro label is embedded in a BasisFeeder.

The Milkivit sticker is an example of a normal sticker, which is what we can offer and what is technically possible for injection molded MineralRockers. Stickers may not last forever, and durability depends a lot on quality (and price). The Timac Agro label is an example of a permanent marking which is embedded in the plastic part. We can offer this type of labeling for all our products produced by rotational molding, although it requires special production and therefore takes a little longer to prepare.

Please contact us if you are interested in to have your logo placed on our products.

Success with the use of mineral feeders require that the formulation of the used mineral feeds complies with a few and simple, but mandatory principles. In addition to that, MicroFeeder has developed some guiding recommendations regarding the content of minerals etc. in mineral feeds for use in our mineral feeders.

Grass is unpredictable in terms of its mineral content, especially micro-minerals. Therefore, the animals must of course be supplemented with mineral feeds during grazing. For the vast majority, the best method is to offer free-choice loose minerals in a MineralRocker or a BasisFeeder.

We have refreshed an article that, on the basis of collected data from 14 herds with a total of 1,096 cattle, very clearly shows the advantage of this concept over the use of molassed minerals. With free-choice loose mineral feeds, the animals get 2-3 times as many minerals for the same price, and this shows clearly in production, growth, health and reproduction.

If you want to use molassed minerals, you should place them in a mineral feeder so that they neither become dried out and hardened by the sun and wind, nor softened and filled by rain. In this way, the molassed minerals maintain a suitably soft and moist surface, which provides a basis for the animals to get an intentional intake of the cured molasses mass, provided that care is taken to change the buckets when they are empty.

Herds with, for example, 225 dairy cows spend an average of 1 hour per week dealing with the seven most frequent diseases in dairy cows, i.e. mastitis, lameness, metritis, retained placenta, left-displaced abomasum, ketosis and milk fever. However, the working time is only representing a minimum, i.e. approx. $12.5 of the total loss per case of illness averaging $282. The figures are based on a study at Kentucky University (Liang et al., 2017) .

In practical tests involving 6 herds with a total of 2,700 dairy cows, it was concluded that the incidence of diseases falls by 0.25 cases per cow per year (corresponding to 23%) when precision mineral supplementation is used, offering extra mineral supplements via Pitstop^PLUS feeders in the period from 3 weeks before to 3 months after calving - see https://www.microfeeder.com/News_specific?id=376. The diseases that were registered in the test were defined as some that require the involvement of a veterinarian, which broadly means the seven diseases mentioned above.

By using Pitstop^PLUS you can thus save approx. a quarter of an hour per week to take care of sick cows. The time saved is more than enough to fill minerals in 3 Pitstop^PLUS feeders.

Work smarter – not harder!

PitstopPLUS collects data on each individual cow's use of the system. Data is sent to the 'cloud' and displayed in an analyzed and structured way via the 'PitstopPLUS Manager' app, which can be installed on mobile, tablet and computer, or simply be used in a browser. On the graphic here you can see an example of information about a cow:

1. The information on cow no. 3411 on the cow list, e.g. calving date, and number of feedings in the last 48 hours and during the accumulation period, which in this case is 7 days.
2. When you click on the cow's number, you get detailed information about the behavior of the last 30 days. It can be seen, for example, that a natural behavior is that the number of visits to a Pitstop^PLUS mineral feeder varies from day to day because precision mineral supplementation is based on the natural behavior of the cows. On average, the cow has been fed mineral feed approx. 3 times a day, and it has poked its head into the feeder an average of almost 20 times a day. Logs of the individual visits and their results are listed, and this cow has eaten all her ration.
3. The Pitstop^PLUS Manager app also provides information on the individual cow's summarized mineral intake for a desired period, in this case for the last ½ year. This cow is a first-calver that did not have access to extra minerals from the system as a high-pregnant heifer in this herd, which means that the consumption shown covers a period since calving, just over 3 months.

Grass is completely unreliable with respect to its content of micro-minerals, and its macro-mineral content is often insufficient. Therefore, animals are of course supplemented with minerals during grazing.

There are several methods, but in essence, free-choice supplementation via mineral feeders is the method that best ensures that the animals get the minerals they need. It is therefore just great that it is also by far the cheapest method! The salt in the free-choice supplements stimulates the intake and prevents at the same time luxury intake. Salt has the fantastic property that it tastes good when the body lacks it, but otherwise bad.

MicroFeeder has a wide range of mineral feeders. MineralRocker and BasisFeeder are targeted at grazing cattle, sheep and horses, while the Pitstop types mainly are for use indoors, e.g. for dairy cows that come to the barn to be milked.

In most cases, the animals will survive a grazing season without supplemental minerals, but they will not thrive as they should and their weight gain will be too small. The immune status decreases when the animals lack micro-minerals and they are therefore more easily attacked by, for example, flies and internal parasites.

Animals need 7 macro minerals (Ca, P, Mg, Na, Cl, K and S), 8 micro minerals (I, Fe, Cu, Co, Mo, Zn, Mn and Se), as well as a number of vitamins, divided into water-soluble vitamins (especially B and C vitamins) and fat-soluble vitamins (vitamin A, D, E).

We have made a guide for the composition of mineral supplements for use in mineral feeders - https://www.microfeeder .com/recommended, recommendations regarding mineral needs - https://www.microfeeder.com/mineralnorms, and MineralCalculator - https://www.microfeeder.com/mineralnorms#mineralcalculator, which is an App for estimating necessary intake of minerals for different types of cattle and sheep, and the price thereof.

The way we pack Pitstop^PLUS systems and our other products on pallets is a subject that we often communicate with our customers about.

Our packing of pallets follows a standard procedure to ensure the lowest transport costs and reduce the risk for damages under transport

To better clarify how we pack our products on pallets, we have now placed photos of the standard packed pallets in the photo gallery of each product.

Pitstop^PLUS, our system for precision supplementation of transition dairy cows is launched on the market, and is in that connection presented at EuroTier 2022. Pitstop^PLUS is a smart livestock farming system, which means practical and economic use of feed additives and mineral feed supplements, including microminerals, which especially has an effect on dairy cows in the critical period of the lactation from approx. 3 weeks before calving and until approx. 3 months after calving.

Pitstop^PLUS is based on a need for rethinking dairy cow supplementation. Results of practical tests within the framework of the IoF2020 mega-project very clearly demonstrated the justification of the technology, which, among other things, resulted in 23% fewer disease incidences requiring the involvement of a veterinarian, and 19% lower somatic cell counts.

See in this animation the simple technique and logical function of the advanced Pitstop^PLUS Internet of Things (IoT) technology for automated precision supplementation of dairy cows in the critical transition period, eg with high-value mineral feed supplements with advanced additives such as rumen-protected choline and rumen-protected amino acids.

We are ready for a new winter season with a heated water trough that offers a whole range of improvements! We have built-in a thermostat that starts the heating when the ambient temperature is 13°C or below, and this means that the drinking water is kept tempered with a minimum of energy consumption. Temperate water is better for the horses' vulnerable digestive system than cold water. We have also skipped the transformer, which means that the trough is delivered ready to connect to an electrical outlet - and the trough is of course CE marked, which means that it has been tested and approved in relation to safety. It is produced in a nice dark green color and comes with a strap for attachment to a fence post.

Partners, test farms and collaborators from the IoF2020 project Use Case 2.6 on precision supplementation, which ended in early 2021, met in Lithuania in July 2022, 1½ years after the end of the project.

An overall purpose was to exchange experience on precision supplementation since the end of the project.

The organizer and host of the meeting was Rimantas Stakauskas, who heads the Biological Research Center at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LUHS). The program included visits to the 'LUHS Training and Research Farm' in Giraite near Kaunas, as well as to 'Padovinio ZUB' near Mariampole, and also included a presentation from Strathclyde University in Scotland on current activities in precision livestock farming.

Heden Jersey has with success redistributed 25% of the mineral supplements from the basic feed ration (TMR / compact feeding) to the Pitstop^PLUS system for precision supplementation. The herd of about 150 Jersey dairy cows were previously given a sack of 27 kg of farm minerals from Vilomix via the compact TMR, but this has now been reduced to a daily sack of 20 kg.

By moving mineral supplements from the TMR to the Pitstop^PLUS system, it is achieved that cows in the critical period around calving gets minerals and vitamins as well as feed additives in correspondence with their needs. At Heden Jersey, the cows get access to extra mineral supplements via the Pitstop^PLUS system from 3 weeks before the expected calving date and up to 3 months after calving, ie. in the period during which the cows' feed intake is below their needs.

Ib Damgaard Andersen, Heden Jersey says: “It makes good sense for us to move mineral supplements kilo by kilo from the TMR to the Pitstop^PLUS system for precision mineral supplementation. The redistribution benefits the cows during the critical period of the lactation. We have a high health status and a good reproduction in the herd, and I have no doubt that Pitstop^PLUS contributes to this. ”

In this connection, please keep in mind that the feedstuffs in the TMR / basic feed ration in many cases contains a large part of the minerals and vitamins the cows need, and that the purpose of mineral supplementation alone is to close the gap between the natural content in feedstuffs and the cows' needs. Therefore, in many cases, a large part of the mineral supplements in the TMR / basic feed ration can be moved to the critical period where the supplements benefit the production, reproduction and health of the dairy cows, rather than ending in the dung. Of course, you should not move more mineral supplements than the cows in mid and end lactation needs.

During the critical period, the cows on Heden Jersey are now offered up to 150 grams of mineral supplement per cow per day via the Pitstop^PLUS system. The minerals are Pitstop Multi from Vilomix, which are specifically developed for the purpose with an extra good taste and flowability.

It is the experience that the Pitstop^PLUS concept works best if it gives the cows access to at least 100 grams of extra mineral supplements per cow per day, and is set so that the cows that may receive extra supplements have "Success" in triggering a dose by each visit, as their natural behavior is to visit the feeders 3-4 times a day.

We have updated our Pitstop^PLUS product card with the changed recommendations.

Normally you can count on getting 3-4 € back for every € you spend on correct mineral supplementation. However, this ratio has only improved, as the price of milk has risen more than the price of mineral supplements. For example, the payment from ARLA has increased by approx. 30% in the last 12 months to the current listing of approx. 0.47 € / kg standard milk (https://farmtalonline.dlbr.dk/Navigation/NavigationTree.aspx). There are signs that the milk price will increase further in 2022 (https://agrocom.dk/maelken-springer-igen-i-vejret/). During the same period, the price of mineral feed supplements has only increased by approx. 20-25%.

The most important success criteria for a good milk production economy remain 1) good management, including care quality, stable environment, feed quality and a balanced feed ration, etc., 2) trading skills, especially the ability to trade feed at the right times and at the right prices, and 3) using production methods according to the wishes of consumers and politicians.

MicroFeeder's concepts for mineral supplementation relate to all three mentioned success criteria: 1) Good management means correct mineral supplementation according to the animals' needs. A practical experiment showed 30% higher daily gain in grazing heifers after shifts to use our MineralRocker - https://www.microfeeder.com/docs/Vildmosen_trial_-_Foged_et_al_2001_en.pdf. We are also told that health is increasing in herds that switch to using our mineral feeders - see https://www.microfeeder.com/Articles/insufficient_intake_molassed_minerals. 2) Using MineralRocker and BasisFeeder means that you can give your grazing animals mineral mixtures instead of molassed minerals, which are typically 4 times more expensive - see https://www.microfeeder.com/News_specific?id=359 and https://www.microfeeder.com/docs/Mineralcalculator_example_en.pdf. 3) Our Pitstop^PLUS system leads to much better animal welfare and sustainability, eg we have registered 23% fewer diseases among dairy cows as a result of using our Pitstop^PLUS system for them - https://www.microfeeder.com/News_specific?id=376. Overall, our Pitstop^PLUS system contributes to six of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals:

On a beautiful November day we paid a visit to Hans Gasser, a dairy farmer in Belp, together with our long-standing Swiss dealer, UFA. Hans Gasser bought a Pitstop^BASIS from UFA last winter for his 50-cow herd of Holstein Friesian and Red Friesian.

With the Pitstop^BASIS feeder, the cows can eat foddersalt after free-choice principles, and Hans Gasser is always sure that the cows' individual needs are fulfilled.

The feeder is placed in an outside area of the stable without roof. Its design protects the used mineral supplements from rain, and the possibility of placement outside as well as inside gives more freedom to find an optimal placement. The best placement is where there is cow-traffic and light, and where refilling is easy, and all the mentioned conditions are met here, where the cows often pass the feeder on their way to the feeding table or to the milking robot. Because of its sidewards mounting, you can always find a place where the feeder does not take up space meant for the cows and their milk production.

Because of his asthma, Hans Gasser wanted to avoid the daily dusty handling of foddersalt when he throwed that into his mixer wagon. The Pitstop^BASIS feeder is placed so that refilling is possible without dust, and it is only necessary to refill once a week.

Hans Gasser has only positive things to say about his Pitstop^BASIS, which is relevant for all cattle herds, not only for dairy cows but also for heifers, dry cows and beef cattle, in order to give mineral feed in a labor-saving way that also ensure the individual need of the animals are met.

Young stock, such as dairy heifers are often kept in group pens. Typically, their need for mineral supplementation is secured via top-dressing, at least in herds without a mixer waggon. This daily routine can be replaced with giving access to free-choice supplements in a Pitstop^BASIS feeder. In this way, the individual needs of the animals is secured in a physiologically optimal way, to the benefit of their health and fertility. The method is furthermore labour-saving.

Even if mineral supplements are mixed into the feed, it is still a good idea to offer access to free-choice supplements in a Pitstop^BASIS feeder to ensure all animals get their needs covered.

Pitstop^BASIS is available in a version with a large protective frame, or in a version for simple mounting, as shown on this photo.

It is important that horses can drink as much water as they want at all times, as this prevents dehydration and colic. An adult horse of 500 kg needs at least 35-40 liters of water daily. In winter, feedstuffs such as grain and hay contain less than 15 percent water, and therefore drinking water is more important in winter than in summer, when they eat fresh grass that typically contains 70-80% water.

If horses drink too little water in winter, they eat too little and are more prone to colic, and they don't get enough energy to withstand the cold. Another problem is too dry stools, which can cause constipation. These problems do not occur during a single day, but if the horses drink too little over several days.

Research shows that horses drink the most water if it is temperate and has a temperature between 7 and 15 °C (see e.g.: Kristula, M.A.; McDonnell, S.M. Drinking water temperature affects consumption of water during cold weather in ponies. Applied Animal Behavior Science 41: 155-160, 1994.).

Therefore one should have a clear plan, not only to avoid the horses' drinking water freezing to ice during frost periods, but also to secure the horses access to temperate drinking water. The use of MicroFeeder's heated water bath is the obvious solution. It is characterized by a beautiful and functional design that has been developed for the purpose, and it has a thermostat that switches on heating when the water in the trough is 13 °C or below.

"We have now had time to install the feeders and observe how quickly the sheep take to them”, says Heike Berens from Galnagh Pastoral Company, a sheep operation in Victoria, Australia. “We love the quality and how easy they are to set up. The photo shows our pet sheep, who are a little bit more adventurous and trusting, but the other sheep take to them just as well. It has been really wet and wild here lately, but that was a good test, too – the feed inside the feeders stayed really dry. So great news all around!”

To facilitate mounting in the barn, we now offer Pitstop+ and Pitstop feeders with a large protective frames in versions that are prepared for hanging on the right or left side.

The effects of the Pitstop^PLUS concept was tested under practical conditions in six farms in Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Denmark with a total of about 2,700 dairy cows:

• In a 12-month period starting August / September 2019, every other cow that has calved has had access to eat extra minerals from Pitstop^PLUS feeders during the critical transition period, ie. until 98 days after calving.
• The access to extra supplements for the dry CloseUp cows from three weeks before calving was inconsistent, among other because one herd graze their dry cows during the summertime, and the possibility to give access for pregnant heifers and dry cows was due to the housing not possible in all herds.
• The supplements used in the Danish, Latvian and Lithuanian herds are "Pitstop+ ProMais StartLact", produced by Vilomix. The used supplements in the German farm, "Milkinal® 8339 Pitstop+" is delivered by Milkivit / Trouw Nutrition Germany. In addition, the German herd has for a limited part of the transition period used a product with Rumen Protected Choline (RPC) delivered by Salvana. The used supplements contain a wide range of high-available micro minerals and vitamins and advanced feed additives. The mineral mixtures are designed for having good taste and flowability.

Despite being based on prototypes and many technical problems, tests of Automated Precision Supplementation has shown impressive results on the dairy production economy.

• The results presented in the table can be listed as follows:
  • The test cows have 23% fewer disease treatments involving a veterinarian, which exceeds our expectations. The result is calculated on the basis of 1,367 cows and is supported by the other positive effects on health, including cell counts and culled cows.
  • The somatic cell count is on average 18% lower for the test cows, corresponding to 54,000 fewer cells per ml.
  • The number of inseminations per pregnancy is 0.11 lower for the test cows, corresponding to 6% lower, and there is a corresponding positive effect on the number of non-started cows and on the number of empty days.
  • The test cows have on average eaten only 3.4 kg extra supplements during the critical transition period. This average was not enough to ensure an effect on the milk yield, whereas there is a good effect in the Danish and German herds (see below), where the cows have eaten 81 and 144 grams of minerals in extra per day in the critical transition period, respectively, including a choline product for part of the period.

The feed intake during the critical transition period is on average about 20% lower than the need of the cow, and if you look at the minerals alone, it means that the cows with their feed ration have an undersupply of 50-70 grams mineral feed supplements per cow per day. The effect of the Pitstop^PLUS concept is mainly due to the fact that the body has very small stocks of micro-minerals, which is of great importance for the cow's immune status and thus its health status, fertility and productivity.

The effect of using Automated Precision Supplementation was even higher in the Danish and German herds.

Tests in the Danish and German herds were more or less comparable, as the uptake of mineral feed was at an expected level (due to fewer technical problems), and both herds used both mineral supplements and a choline product for a larger or smaller part of the test period. The average results from these two herds were as shown in the table.

The results suggest a solid financial advantage of the concept.

The analyses are made by Organe Institute within the frames of the Internet of Food and Farm 2020 mega-project.

1. Targeted allocation of more minerals to the cows during the critical transition period to cover the gap between uptake and needs from approx. 3 weeks before to approx. 3 months after calving;
2. At least a 10% reduction in the amount of minerals in the TMR mixture of dairy cows, as this amount is simply an oversupply of minerals to the cows in middle and late lactation, which just ends up in the manure;
3. Use of cheaper minerals without expensive additives in the farm minerals, eg organic microminerals, yeast, etc. which are without effect in middle and late lactation stages;
4. Economical and practical use of effective additives for the cows during the critical transition period - see a list of the most common here
5. Application of several types of supplementary feed at the same time, as the effective period for the additives is different. For example, it will usually be most economical to limit the use of rumen-protected choline or rumen-protected amino acids to a shorter period;
6. Create a virtual grouping without having to invest in expensive separation gates or having difficulty with mixing several ration types.

The improvement combines advantages of previous ways of producing the bottoms. The lower part of plastic bottoms are everywhere supported by the new counterweights, meaning they better withstand mechanical impact, such as being pushed into a rock on the field.

The snap lock on Pitstop feeders is designed for being opened with one hand, and at the same time preventing the cows from opening the lid.

If the snap lock is too tight or too loose it can easily be adjusted.

The methods for this are mentioned in the "Instruction for mounting and use", which is contained in the supplied mounting kit for each feeder in a printed version - and explained in detail in an additional guide ....

We now inform GTIN-13 codes for our products. The number is seen in our dealer webshop, i.e. under the menu item "ORDERING" when you have selected an item and clicked "More info".

We can also offer to label each item with an EAN bar code and pallets with GS1-128 pallet labels.

More and more of our goods are sold through our distributors' webshops, where it is convenient to use Global Trade Item Numbers that contain information about the manufacturer's country and identity, as well as an item number.

Our privacy policy explains what we register about users and what cookies we use.

With us, the little information we have registered about you as a registered user at our website is found under your user profile. After login you can see the information under 'SETTINGS'. The information is required to use various facilities on our website, including our web apps such as 'MineralCalculator', to receive newsletters and to order goods in our dealer webshop for those of you who are registered as customers.

You can edit your profile settings at any time, except for your user type and the customer company you may represent. You can delete your profile at any time.

By clicking on the following link, you can see all the few information we have recorded about you, you can edit the information or delete your profile, thereby removing the information from our files:

Heifers from six months of age, dry cows and slaughter calves are typically grouped in pens, and should of course have their feed ration balanced with minerals:

• Mineral feeds can advantageously be offered through a Pitstop feeder. It means labour saving compared to giving mineral feeds as top dressing. The method also respects that animals are biological creatures with different needs. After all, in a group of seemingly similar animals, there are still big differences in their daily growth and other things influencing their nutritive needs.
• It is a good idea to place a Pitstop feeder with, for example, slaughter calves or small heifers that may not be accustomed to receiving mineral supplements because they are expected to be well supplied via their feed ration. This ensure everyone gets minerals and vitamins in accordance with their individual needs.

It is important to use free-choice minerals in a Pitstop feeder, meaning mineral mixtures with a slightly higher salt content. This avoids an excess intake of mineral feeds and ensures at the same time an intake that is sufficient for the animals to be able to utilize their feed ration optimally and maintain good health, production and reproduction. Read more about our recommendations for the composition of free-choice mineral feeds here.

Typically, the intake of mineral feeds is 30-120 grams per animal per day, least for calves and most for cows, but highly dependent on the content of minerals in their feed ration. In groups of transition cows at the beginning of their lactation, we have recorded an intake of 50-100 grams of extra mineral feeds per cow per day, in addition to the intake of minerals via their feed ration – read our previous post on this here and read more about Pitstop here..

This is the opinion of Ib Damgaard Andersen, Heden Jersey, who was involved in testing the Pitstop+ system for "childhood diseases" and who in this video clip states that the system works really well.

The test was conducted in collaboration with Vilomix, which has developed mineral feed supplements targeted at dairy cows during the critical transition phase, and with good properties regarding taste and flowability.

It has now also been proven through analysis of experimental data that dairy cows in the critical transition phase like to eat extra mineral supplements. Read more about this and find other new information about Pitstop + ....

Pitstop+ is itself an innovative, cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) precision mineral supplementation technology, which MicroFeeder A/S has developed.

Pitstop+ makes use of another innovative technology, namely electronic ear tags. When electronic ear tags are already used in a number of countries, including in Denmark, it is not least because the extra cost per animal is only approx. 2% of what transponders cost, and you don't have to worry about mounting transponders on the animals and matching the numbers of the transponders with the animal's official ID. Electronic ear tags are for example offered by Allflex.

The six test beds in the IoF2020 Precision Mineral Supplementation Use Case uses electronic ear tags. Here is a calf in one of the Latvian testbeds, ready for the innovative IoT technology of the future, where herd management can be based on accurate and objective data rather than random and subjective impressions.

The first 24 Pitstop+ feeders, just before dispatch to six large dairy cattle farms in Latvia, Lithuania and Germany. A milestone has been reached after several years of Pitstop+ development and testing, and the system is now fully functional.

Pitstop+ precision mineral supplementation is for dairy farms that wants increasing yields and profitability, while in the same time using the advantages of TMR feeding.

We have opened for orders at our dealer webshop.

Grazing is good, cheap and easy, but it must be taken into account that grass does not contain the minerals the animals need, and especially that the content of microminerals is completely unpredictable. Remember that minerals account for around 15% of the body weight, which means that the animals must add 15% or 150 grams of minerals to their body tissues each time they grow 1,000 grams / 1 kg. Since minerals typically have an absorption efficiency of 50%, the animals must be supplied with 300 grams of minerals for this to happen.

It is important to have a safe, cheap and easy strategy to ensure the animals' supplementation with minerals during grazing periods so that they can maintain optimal productivity and health in an economic way.

There are four overall strategies:

1. If you do not provide mineral supplements, you can expect a 30% productivity suppression and a low immune status among the animals with increased risk of diseases and death among them. You can read about the importance of mineral supplementation for grazing animal here.
2. The animals can be given a bolus before the grazing starts or access to lick stones / salt blocks during grazing. Both of these solutions will typically supply them with a few, important microminerals. Popularly speaking, it prevents the animals from dying from under-supply of minerals, but the need for macro minerals to ensure optimal productivity is not taken into account in this way.
3. Use of molassed minerals in tubs, buckets and alike is far too expensive in consumption because the kg price is high and much of what you pay for is molasses rather than minerals. The problem is also that the sweet taste causes the dominant animals to eat most, especially if the molasses mixture is soaked with rain, while none of the animals can eat any of it if wind and sun have dried the mass and made it hard as concrete.
4. The use of free-choice mineral supplements in MineralRocker or BasisFeeder ensures that the animals, regardless of the weather, can eat the minerals they need and over-supply is prevented by the salt content.

With MineralCalculator, you can calculate how much mineral feed your cattle or sheep need, and compare the cost of using different mineral feed types; The use of free-choice mineral supplements with MineralRocker or BasisFeeder is normally much cheaper than the use of molassed minerals.

You find MineralCalculator under "FACTS" and "Mineral norms", or by clicking here. For using the app, you need to be registered (click here) and logged in (click here).

An example calculation with 25 suckler cows shows that you save € 1,152 in just 3 months by using free-choice mineral supplements rather than molassed minerals. This corresponds to a saving of 70%, so the return on an investment in a mineral feeder is fantastic. Click on the following link to see the details of the calculation with MineralCalculator:

MicroFeeder was on 12 March 2019 converted to a private shareholding company, and has in this connection got new company registration and VAT number, DK40340793 and new bank account. The conversion was made as part of a development strategy of the company. MicroFeeder was earlier a private statutory company.

At the same time, Erik HOUGAARD and Thorkild HVIID are included as partners in the company. Both have many years of experience in corporate management and development as well as board work. The three owners also constitute the Board of Directors of MicroFeeder A/S. Thorkild HVIID is Chairman of the Board, Erik HOUGAARD is Deputy Chairman, and Henning Lyngsø FOGED Member of the Board.

IoF2020 Pitstop+ is a Use Case of the Internet of Food and Farming 2020 project, which is financed under the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme.

The Use Case project runs for two years in 2019 and 2020. Organe Institute ApS is coordinator of the Use Case with Zemnieku Saeima, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences and Lehr- und Versuchszentrum Futterkamp under Landwirtschaftskammer Schleswig-Holstein as partners.

The project is of technical reasons coordinated by Organe Institute rather than by MicroFeeder, and you can read more about it here.

Stakeholder meetings were organised in all three countries, LV, LT and DE with app. 45, 15 and 25 participants, including dairy farmers, researchers, authorities, farm advisers and mineral feed supplement dealers. The photo is from the meeting at Futterkamp, where Dr Ole Lamp presented a PowerPoint about "The gap between need and supply of the transit cow", prepared by Dr. Luise Prokop, and it provides a wealth of interesting information in relation to Pitstop+:

We changed our company name from enAgro to MicroFeeder as of July 1st, and our primary web address has at the same time been changed to microfeeder.com.

The company was also named MicroFeeder in the period from 1998 to 2008, but was changed to enAgro 10 years ago to better comprise activities related to expertise, advice and services. Part of this has already been moved to Organe Institute ApS , and CropManager and other minor activities have now also been moved to Organe Institute ApS.

The changes make MicroFeeder appear as a pure manufacturing company, which, with its name, is better able to profile the MicroFeeder brand of mineral feeders.

Please note that we also changed the main email address to iusr@microfeeder.com.

We are proud to present MicroFeeder Pitstop. The feeder is seen on a short video with clips from three dairy herds, where it is used in groups of starter cows in the beginning of the lactation.

In general, microfeeder.com has been extended with information about MicroFeeder's products, and it is now possibe to make orders at the page.

The Innobooster program has granted enAgro co-financing to further develop an innovative supplements feeder for dairy cows.

The project "Feeder for RFID-based supplementation of dairy cows" runs until early 2017, and follows almost two years of initial market studies and research. The new project will involve expertise of other companies, such as LMO concerning expertise on cattle production, and KPJ Supply concerning dedicated electronic components and software for agricultural appliances.

A basic version is launched during spring 2016. It gives dairy farmers the possibility to offer their cows an extra choice of mineral supplements. In almost all dairy farms, the only source of minerals, vitamins and trace elemets for the dairy cows is the standardized, total mixed ration, which the cows isn't able to eat in sufficient amounts during the critical period. Minerals, vitamins and trace elements are crucial for cows' well-being and production, and therefore for the profitable dairy production. The basic feeder builds on the principles of free-choice supplementation. A normal behaviour of cattle is to seek the minerals, vitamins and micro-minerals they are in lack of. The feeder gives the cows a hygienic way to satisfy their need for extra supplements, and it respects that cows are individuals with different metabolism.

The Innobooster project will focus on add-on functionality to enable dosing of supplements in a precise, targeted and individual way. There is a range of effective feed additives to avoid the whole complex of costly diseases, reproduction problems and ultimately death of the cows in the critical period, and to boost the productivity. However, an economic use of these feed additives require targeted supplementation to the cows in the critical period, and the means for that has so far not been present. The Pitstop feeder allows group-in-group supplementation, and the incorporation of mineral supplementation among "Internet of things" and "smart farming".

We call the new feeder for Pitstop, and associates in this way clearly to motorsports, where the cars shortly visits the pit during races as a pre-condition for a continuted high performance.

The Pitstop feeder is the third member of the MicroFeeder family of mineral feeders. Being meant for indoor use, hanging on a wall or alike in order to avoid space requirement, and enable RFID-based dosing of mineral supplements, are unique features that so far doesn't exist, also in a worldwide perspective, and are part of the newly submitted patent claims for the invention.

enAgro made in April 2015 a survey of 23 owners of dairy herds, randomly selected among all herds with milk recording and with more than 80 cows. The purpose was to get an insight into current practices concerning supplementation of the dairy cows, and about the way they are grouped. The herds had in average 243 cows and a yield of 780 kg fat + protein.

The survey revealed, that only eight of 23 herds had their lactating cows physically separated into groups. Surprisingly, these eight herds with grouping of the cows gave the same feed and minerals to all lactating cows anyway. 22 out of 23 herds used one or more feed additives, but none of them were able to give the feed additives targeted to cows in the critical period from 2-3 weeks before calving and until about 100 dayes after calving. Targeted supplementation with the feed additives would save the herds for about € 8,000 per year, because their effect is limited to the critical period.

Profitable use of feed additives require targeted and consequent use.