Well 4J, I'd like to ask you to re-read the post.  I was talking about pelleted supplements vs mineral, and we don't sell any pelleted supplement.  I'm trying to help someone out and not even recommending anything we sell because it would be the best solution for his situation.  We are talking about hand feeding calves and I firmly believe pellets will work better than loose mineral in a hand fed grain mix fed separately from the free choice roughage.  

As for our liquid "not any better than a quality mineral" I would respectfully share some facts.  I just this week finished a meta analysis on 10 years worth of closeouts, all family feedyards working with the same nutritionist (so all rations were balanced to the same basic nutritional targets).  With over 630,000 hd of cattle in the data set, cattle on our liquid had ADG of 3.17 and DM F/G was 7.3; cattle on premix in their TMR had ADG of 3.01 and DM F/G of 7.72.  Avg start and finish weights were within 8 pounds of each other.  These results are consistent with the two controlled trials Robbi Pritchard has done at SDSU on our liquid vs dry supplements or balancers.  At $3/corn that is $13/hd in savings from less feed and less days to get to the same end point.

It's good you're looking at TMR bunk samples to check ration and nutrient levels.  Mixer evaluations are actually 6 samples taken from the same load to check for the variation in nutrients.  We have done many of these at the same feedlots, one batch on our liquid and the other batch on dry premix and on average we reduce nutrient variation from sample to sample by 50%.  The rumen positively responds to better day to day consistency.

I'm glad you had the opportunity to know Kenny, and if you haven't met Cory yet you should.  Living 25 miles from our office I'm sure we could easily arrange it.  You are free to be doubtful, but I am bound by a professional code of ethics to tell it straight, I always put the needs of the cattle and the producer first.  You can always debate my opinion, but I would greatly appreciate it if my character and my motives were not questioned.

Thanks,