Table 1. Summarization of minerals in dairy rations.
Deficiency Symptoms Food Sources for Functions and Associated Problems Dairy Cattle Bone and teeth formation, Rickets, slow growth and Alfalfa and other blood clotting, muscle poor bone development, legumes, ground contraction, 12% in whole easily fractured bones, limestone, dicalcium milk reduced milk yield phosphate, steamed bone meal Bone and teeth formation, Fragile bones, poor growth, Phosphates, steamed involved in energy low blood phosphorus, bone meal, cereal metabolism, part of DNA depraved appetite, poor grains, grain byand RNA, .09 percent in reproductive performance products, oil seed milk meal Acid-base balance, Craving for salt, reduced Common salt and muscle contraction, nerve appetite, incoordination butter products transmission weakness, shivering Enzyme activator, found Irritability, tetany-increased Magnesium oxide, in skeletal tissue and excitability forages and mineral bone supplements Rumen microbial protein Slow growth, reduced milk Elemental sulfur, synthesis, found in production, reduced feed sodium and potassium cartilage, tendons, and efficiency sulfates, legume acids forages Maintenance of Decrease in feed intake, legume forages, electrolyte balance, loss of hair glossiness, potassium chloride, enzyme activator, lower blood potassium potassium sulfate muscle/nerve function Synthesis of thyroxine Big neck in calves, Iodized salt, trace goitrogenic (enlargement of mineralized salt and thyroid gland) substances commercial may cause deficiency supplements Part of hemoglobin, part Nutritional anemia, pale Forages, grains, trace of many enzyme systems mucus membrane mineralized salt, ethylene diamine dihydroiodine Needed for manufacture Severe diarrhea, abnormal Trace mineralized salt of hemoglobin, coenzyme appetite, poor growth, and commercial coarse, bleached hair coat supplements Part of vitamin B12, Failure of appetite, anemia, Trace mineralized salt needed for growth of decreased milk production, and commercial rumen microorganisms rough hair coat supplements Growth, bone formation, Delayed or decreased Trace mineralized salt enzyme activator signs of estrus, poor and commercial conception supplements Enzyme activator, wound Decreased weight gains, Forages, trace healing lowered feed efficiency, mineralized salt, zinc skin/wound problems methionine Not known if it is essential Severe reduction in feed Rock phosphate for ruminants, although intake, stiffness in legs, mineral essential for lab animals enlarged bones Functions with certain White muscle disease, Oil meals, alfalfa, enzymes, associated with retained placenta, lessens wheat, oats, corn, vitamin E, immune subclinical mastitis commercial system supplements Part of the enzyme Loss of weight, emaciation, Widely distributed in xanthine oxidase diarrhea feeds, deficiency rarely a problem