The Trigg County Cooperative Extension Service in Cooperation with the Trigg County Cattlemen's Association partnered to help livestock producers better manage their herds and meet their individual goals.  One way we help producers is through our IRM mineral program.  Three times each year the ANR agent in cooperation with a committee of Cattlemen’s members collects bids from local feed suppliers on free choice minerals formulated per the UK IRM specs.  The best prices are then offered to producers.  UK regulatory services also assists us in this process by testing the mineral delivered to out producers. The producers are assured that they are buying a good quality mineral and generally it is at a better price point than what they’d been buying previously.  This year marked my third year of working with the program and also the third year of growth.  We had over 60 producers that took part in the mineral order, they were from 5 different counties and both Tennessee and Kentucky.  We also ordered more mineral this year than we ever have in the past. Orders this year were over 90 tons for the three orders combined, compared to last year which was just over 70 tons.  

One issue our producers were faced with this year was vitamin supply issues.  These price increases according to producers amounted to anywhere from a 4-8$ per bag increase in mineral prices at their retailers.  This had many producers questioning whether they should spend that much on mineral and also what they might could get by with rather than paying the higher prices.  This gave us many opportunities to share with producers what we knew was a requirement for cattle production and what they might could do without to save some money.  

Working with our mineral suppliers and using the updated IRM specs from our UK specialists we were actually able to offer better prices on almost every order for the minerals offered for 2018.  Based on the mineral orders we placed- 3616 bags, and the average price increase our producers were reporting- $6/ bag our mineral program saved producers over $21,000 in 2018.