In south central Iowa, there is a cattle operation that covers all aspects of management. For Isaiah Shnurman, owner of SP Genetics and Shnurman Sire Services at Bevington, Iowa, managing his cattle and his client’s cattle starts with proper nutrition.
“Managing nutrition is very important to our overall operation,” said Shnurman, who runs his own enterprise while also flushing cows, implanting embryos and collecting semen on high-dollar purebred cattle from across the country. “If I can get my customers another live calf in their next calf crop that will net them another marketable bull or heifer at $3,000 to $5000 or more dollars of return, that is worth the 15 cents per day to feed a supplement like Concept•Aid®. That’s a little investment for a lot of return.”
Perhaps the best return on his investment Shnurman has seen is feeding the Vita Charge® Stress Tubs to herd sires that he plans to collect semen from. He starts them on the tubs when the bulls come in from pasture after covering cows, and sees their overall semen quality improve in a shorter amount of time. He considers the stress tubs a long-term investment, because as he said in the beef business, “nothing happens overnight.” About 60 days after the bulls have been on the Vita Charge Stress Tubs, he sees a notable increase in semen quality, motility and viability.
“The bulls get healthy and stay healthier in a shorter amount of time, which is crucial since we only have a short window of time to collect and produce a high-quality product for AI’ing next spring with that 120-180 day window after they’ve been with cows. Their semen quality usually improves, and we get a quality end-product that helps everyone stay profitable,” he said.
Shnurman became a BioZyme dealer nearly three years ago because he had been using the products and appreciated the amount of research that backed the product, especially the on-going research with Amaferm®, is a prebiotic designed to enhance digestibility by amplifying the nutrient supply for maximum performance. It is research-proven to increase intake, digestion and absorption.
“We will not sell a product that doesn’t work for us. Amaferm has more research to back it than any other product I found,” Shnurman said.
