ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE February 2026 47 However, the cumulative effect of these “insurance policies” is now clear: systematic oversupply has become more common, and more harmful. SILENT BUT SIGNIFICANT: HEALTH AND REPRODUCTIVE COSTS Trace mineral overload rarely presents rapid, dramatic symptoms. Instead, it develops quietly. Copper Accumulation and Chronic Toxicity Studies from the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and the UK indicate that a substantial percentage of dairy cows carry liver copper concentrations exceeding safe thresholds. Chronic copper load can heighten vulnerability to stress induced hemolytic crisis, reduce feed intake and metabolic efficiency, increase oxidative stress and interfere with immune response. Reproductive Consequences Research consistently shows that elevated copper levels reduce conception rates and increase the number of services per pregnancy. This has clear implications for farm profitability, especially in high performance herds where reproductive efficiency underpins economic sustainability. Subclinical Performance Drag Like many metabolic imbalances, mineral overload often manifests as: • Lower milk persistency, • Reduced rumen efficiency, • Greater susceptibility to disease, • Poorer transition cow resilience. The lack of obvious signs contributes to the misconception that “more is better,” even when productivity quietly suffers. ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC PRESSURES MOUNTING Oversupplied minerals are not stored indefinitely; they are excreted. Elevated levels of Cu, Zn, and Mn in manure accumulate in soils over time, disturbing soil microbial communities and raising concerns around water contamination. Several regions are facing increased regulatory scrutiny around land application limits. In regions already facing nitrogen and phosphorus regulation, trace mineral excretion is emerging as an additional sustainability pressure point. Economic Inefficiency Although trace minerals represent a small percentage of feed cost, oversupplying them is economically irrational. Feed budget is wasted, fertilizer and manure management challenges increase, and no performance benefit is gained. For formulators working within tight margin structures, eliminating unnecessary mineral inclusion represents instant cost savings. A PRECISION APPROACH: INTEGRATING THE BASAL DIET A key insight from Trouw Nutrition’s extensive dataset of 5,000 dairy diets is that basal rations already supply a significant proportion of required trace minerals (~50% of copper, ~32% of zinc, ~68% of manganese). These contributions often go unrecognized. When mineral content from forages and byproducts is not accounted for, premix supplementation levels become inflated by default. The challenge is that routine trace mineral testing of forages is not standard in many regions. NIR systems, while efficient, do not reliably measure Cu, Zn, or Mn. This leaves nutritionists relying on book
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