any recipes for hardening a mineral block?
 

I am wanting to try to make my our mineral blocks. Has anyone had any luck with this? Does anyone have any recipes that worked well? I have found a few things online, but not much. They generally call for molassas and heating the mixture in the oven.

Anything over 1/3 salt will brick up in a minute if you get it wet and let it dry out. Molasses will help too.

Granular is the best way to go IMO. It mixes with the soil much better.

So I made my first batch of homemade mineral blocks. I think they are going to work quite well. I somewhat followed a recipe I found on the InterWeb.

5# DiCal, 6# mineral salt, 3# portland cement, 4.5# oats, ~1# liquid molassas, ~1# Buck Jam, ~1/2 gal. water

I formed 4 blocks - 2 in plastic coffee jugs (will just cut the block out) & 2 in small cardboard boxes lined with plastic bags. I was amazed how quuickly they set up - they were "hard" within minutes. It's been over 4 days and I think I could put them out now but will let them cure for close to the 2 weeks recommend. We'll then have to see how the critters take to them.

Gonna continue making blocks, tinkering with the recipes. I will be making many more over the next few weeks seeing how I still have 45# DiCal, 44# salt, 90# cement, 45# oats, 2 gal. molassas, and 50# dry molassas!!!!!!!!

PS - made the blocks (20.5# total) in a bout 1 hour and cost of materials was $6.92

Cement?
 

cement won’t hurt the deer?