Strategy for Mineral Supplementation in Grazing Cattle

The objective was to evaluate the use of multinutritional blocks as a low-cost livestock technology for the growth and development of cattle in the Huasteca. The variables analyzed were weight gain and body condition, which were measured every 28 days, Treatment 1) - 12 calves grazing, without supplementation (control), Treatment 2) - 12 calves grazing, supplemented with a multinutritional block, multivariate analysis of variance was used. Also, production costs were obtained for each of the treatments. The results obtained for weight gain (GDP) were: treatment 1, 0.576 kg/animal/day and treatment 2, 0.614 kg/animal/day. Body condition (CC) treatment 1, started with an average CC of 5 and ended with a CC of 5.8 and treatment 2, started with a CC of 4.3 and ended with a CC of 6; not showing statistically significant results for any of the variables studied. Within the economic analysis a slight economic utility was obtained in favor of treatment 2, being of the order of $1,579.08 and $1,557.20 pesos respectively per animal during the experimental period.