Regardless of your address, we can all agree that it’s been a long winter. Even though we’re officially in spring, it doesn’t look or feel like it in southern Minnesota. The long range forecasts are calling for cooler than average temperatures in most areas with average precipitation. The combination of cool weather and rain is perfect for cool season pastures to take off. While the green pastures are a welcome sight, they can potentially cause grass tetany.

Grass tetany is a metabolic disease brought on by low magnesium in the body and the diet. This occurs most often when cattle are grazing lush, fast growing grass or cereal grain pastures (legumes don’t pose a threat as they may contain twice the magnesium as grasses in the same soil). Mature, lactating cows are more susceptible to grass tetany as they are less able to mobilize magnesium from the bones, where magnesium is stored. Grass tetany symptoms progress rapidly; look for cattle grazing away from the herd, irritability, muscle twitching in the flank, wide-eyed and staring, staggering, collapse, and thrashing. If left untreated the animals eventually fall into a coma and die.

Treating a cow with grass tetany requires a call to the vet and it’s not always successful. Preventing grass tetany requires having a very palatable self-fed supplement with adequate magnesium available at all times when grazing low magnesium pastures. However, while magnesium oxide is a good source of magnesium, it is unpalatable at high inclusion levels. The tricky part is keeping your cattle consuming the supplement to get the benefit of the magnesium.

Magnesium oxide is bitter and bitter is an inherent intake killer (bitter plants tend to be toxic). Cattle can also taste sweet and salty, which are intake drivers. To maintain intakes on a high magnesium product, we take a page from Mary Poppins, add ‘a spoonful of sugar.’ The high palatability and proven intakes of CRYSTALYX^® self-fed supplements ensure that cattle grazing high risk pastures are receiving the magnesium they need. CRYSTALYX^® Super-Mag™ (also available with Bio-Mos^®) is specially formulated to meet your cows’ magnesium requirements on high risk pastures that we typically see under cool wet spring conditions. Other CRYSTALYX^® self-fed supplements with magnesium levels to aid in the prevention of grass tetany include Hi Mag Tasco^®-lyx™, Hi Mag Fescue-Lyx^®, Breed UP^® 17 Mag and ROLYX^® Pro-Mag. To learn more about these products, visit our website www.cystalyx.com, click on Proven Results and select Grass Tetany, or visit your nearest CRYSTALYX^® dealer.