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Totally Natural Nutrition: working with nature not against it
Peter Doyle started using Totally Natural Nutrition (TNN) Australia’s products on his rural property, near Dubbo NSW, and became a reseller 15 years ago. He was so pleased with the results that in late 2022 he bought the company.
“The business has been running for about 25 years,” Peter says, “and 99 per cent of TNN’s resellers are farmers themselves, so they have real life experience with the products.”
Ken Purvis is a beef producer at Gilgandra who first encountered TNN Australia’s products at an AgQuip field day. He began using the Mighty-Min mineral supplement— made from kelp—for his cattle. He had been feeding hay to his animals every day, to prevent the animals eating too much bloat-inducing green pasture, but was able to stop altogether within a week as their bloat had resolved.
Peter Doyle says, when he was still farming, he used to drench his cattle with Mighty-Min the morning before he sent them to market. “People thought I was wasting time and money, but it only cost me 90 cents a head to drench them. I found the cattle were a lot more settled in the truck and I estimate they retained 10-15 kilograms in the 30 hours that they were standing around in the truck and the yards.”
Clayton Evans is a lucerne grower at Quirindi, in regional NSW, and switched to TNN Australia’s fertilisers and mineral supplements several years ago. He says where he used to get 160-180 bales of lucerne from a hectare he now averages 200 bales with his highest yield 247 bales. Also a horse trainer, Clayton has found that his horses are much more settled and require far less hay since giving them Mighty-Min.
While all of their other products are Australian made, TNN Australia’s granular FCMP (fused calcium magnesium phosphate) fertiliser is imported from Vietnam. It differs from the usual water-soluble fertilisers in that it requires the acid around the root zone to break it down. A study conducted in the south-west of Western Australia comparing leaching rates of FCMP with conventional superphosphate found the low water-soluble fertiliser “less-likely to leach from the root zone of plants after heavy rain.”
“When you put the FCMP fertiliser out,” says Peter, “you’re retaining 98 to 99 per cent of your product rather than 42 to 46 per cent with the water-soluble fertiliser.”
To prove the safety of his granular FCMP fertiliser, Peter has photos of his fish tank on the TNN Australia Facebook webpage. The bottom of the tank is lined with the fertiliser while fish swim above it.
“Using our fertilisers, farmers know they are not putting anything on their paddocks that is going to be harmful, and that’s why our slogan is ‘working with nature not against it’.”
Company email address: peter@tnnaustralia.com
Company website: https://www.tnnaustralia.com
NEWS
Trace minerals are required for optimal growth, reproduction, and immunity. Optimising trace mineral status relying solely on oral supplements across a herd may fail because of variation in individual intake and reduced absorption due to antagonism of other ration components and minerals. The use of injectable trace mineral supplements has been associated with positive reproductive outcomes including improved conception rate, increased odds of pregnancy and greater final in calf rate. A study conducted on 2,168 dairy cows, administered injectable trace minerals, four weeks prior to calving and again four weeks prior to the start of mating showed treated animals had a 3.3 per cent greater final in-calf rate, and a reduced time from start of mating to conception, compared to control animals 1 . The Importance of B12 Dr Carl Eden, Technical Services Veterinarian with Boehringer Ingelheim says “Vitamin B12 is sometimes referred to as a ‘super vitamin’ because it is only required in very small amounts but vital to many essential metabolic pathways. However, demand for B12 can vary considerably during the year and we see serum levels of B12 fall at critical times, such as the first few months after calving.” Vitamin B12 contains cobalt, so deficiency in cobalt can lead to deficiency in vitamin B12 because ruminants get most of their B12 as a byproduct of ruminal fermentation where the bacteria in their rumen assemble B12 from cobalt for use by the cow. Sub-optimal trace mineral and vitamin B12 status at calving, mating, and drying off has been shown to negatively impact growth, reproduction, and immunity. Using a trace mineral injectable containing vitamin B12 can improve trace mineral and vitamin B12 status at these critical times. Marks-Min with Vitamin B12 – The Evidence In the largest trace element study to date, Marks-Min Injectable Trace Mineral with Vitamin B12 demonstrated remarkable results when compared to a reference trace mineral injection. “Given the differences between Marks-Min and other products on the market, we wanted to generate a compelling data set to demonstrate how effective it was compared to the pioneer product. We entrusted this work to a third-party research company” says Dr Eden. “We chose farms that were at the top of their game from a reproductive perspective. We made sure that the farms had no evidence of trace element or vitamin B12 deficiencies or excess.” Across all outcomes of interest, Marks-Min demonstrated clear non-inferiority when compared to the reference product. Outcomes measured included submission, pregnancy and conception rates, and six week in-calf rate. Marks-Min demonstrated it is highly suited as an alternative treatment to the reference product. Reference: 1. Hawkins, D., and B. V. S. Franklin. New Zealand Dairy Veterinarians Newsletter 24 (2007): 12-16 Company website: livestockfirst.com.au Company email address: CustomerCare.Australia@boehringer-ingelheim.com Company video: https://vimeo.com/1138807630?fl=pl&fe=cm
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