50 pound mineral blocks

[Allen Roberts]

Has anyone had any experience breaking up the 50lb. Mineral or Salt blocks with a sledgehammer for deer supplement. Someone said they were hard to break into pieces. Can they be divided or broken up?

 

[1911nut]

You can halve salt blocks with a hatchet

 

[BHP9]

We use a Skil Saw to cut our blocks.

Recommend wearing a mask!

 

[Adam in WI]

Are you wanting to just make them smaller, or make them not look like mineral blocks?

 

[Liven The Dream]

I set them in the pasture the Dear and Horses do the work ?

 

[rayporter]

i have split blocks by tapping all the way around the block.] with a 2 lb hammer.
two or three complete rounds of the circumference will usually split a block in half.

 

[BHP9]

Are you wanting to just make them smaller, or make them not look like mineral blocks?

Just smaller.

 

[Adam in WI]

Just smaller.

You could make a small mould. Get a bag of mineral dampen it slightly and pound it into the mould. Maybe use a bread pan with tapered sides so it releases easily. I used small pans like for banana bread to make lead ingots. Worked well for that. I think any method of cutting a block is going to yield a lot of loose mineral anyway.

 

[Rat Rifle]

An ax or sledgehammer breaks them up just fine.

 

[TheOtherZilla]

Drop em out of the back of a pick up onto pavement. Works every time...

 

[redrockranger]

Is supplement another word for bait ?

 

[brcman]

I have had a lot of experience with minerals to entice and help develop antler growth, I read this in an article 30 years ago that was written by a PHD wildlife biologist. I used it for many years until it was banned in my state due to the CWD. It is easy and you do not have to breakdown that block because it is all granular. Mix 50 pounds of trace mineral, 25 pounds of rock salt and 25 pounds of dicalcium phosphate (a supplement used to feed cattle).
Spade it into the ground and the deer will take over from there. One of my mineral licks turned into a hole about 18 inches deep and 10 foot in diameter.

 

[DANNY-L]

I use a splitting maul. I once used my sawzall and didn't hose it off afterwards, rust got it good. That was with salt block. I experimented last year with a mineral block, a white salt block and a apple block. I put a camera on the sight and probably 85-90% of the deer went to white.

 

[kelbro]

I use a splitting maul. I once used my sawzall and didn't hose it off afterwards, rust got it good. That was with salt block. I experimented last year with a mineral block, a white salt block and a apple block. I put a camera on the sight and probably 85-90% of the deer went to white.

Same here on the splitting maul. I have a thin double-bit axe that works on some of them.

The deer on our property here in NC devour apples, peanuts and corn and just barely hit the salt. The flavored blocks were mostly eaten by the coons and possums.

The deer on our property in Texas love the flavored mineral blocks and hardly touch the salt blocks.

The NC deer must be getting their sodium off the ground.

 

[Steve Donlon]

A 20# sledge hammer with a 6' handle. Make sure the block in on concrete when you swing.

 

[Doug Casner]

We had a salt lick in the pasture where we throwed a salt block out for the cattle for years. It seemed to me like the deer would rather lick it out of the dirt after the rain washed it in the ground. The deer had used it so long, getting it out of the dirt, it looked like a mud hole when it rained . Doug

 

[JSH]

Wide masonary chisel, score all the way around, be patient it will crack. I cut mine up into 8 pieces.

 

[ELR LVR]

Has anyone had any experience breaking up the 50lb. Mineral or Salt blocks with a sledgehammer for deer supplement. Someone said they were hard to break into pieces. Can they be divided or broken up?

I break rocks pretty well with my Long Range rifles
Maybe use some solids, get some copper in their diet
---
what about using a Log Splitter?

 

[chop house]

Is supplement another word for bait ?

Not so much. Deer use the salt mostly late spring and summer, not during hunting season. Something about replacing minerals lost while eating browse, rather than mast.

 

[chop house]

Mix 50 pounds of trace mineral, 25 pounds of rock salt and 25 pounds of dicalcium phosphate (a supplement used to feed cattle).
Spade it into the ground and the deer will take over from there

Yup, the Di Cal is the magic, but can be bitter if not incorporated into something with bicarbonate, flavoring (grape Kool aid) or small amount of brown sugar or beet shreds.

Apparently the deer store the calcium in their bones, then draw from the bones to produce the antlers? So, there is a one year delay to seeing results...