tips for weaning calves

[Anonymous]

I have heard or read several methods. what works best for you. i have heard the following ideas people use. out of sight and sound/let them see each other but put up hot fence or roll wire so they can't suck/ using a device on the calf that won;t allow the calf to nurse. thanks for any tips

 

[dun]

We've tried about every method possible over the years. The best we've found is fenceline weaning. A starnd of hotwire between the cows and calves so that they can still interact to a limited degree but not nurse. The calves seem to adjust better then the cows do. But after a day or two we gradually start moving the cows to paddocks that are further and further away from the calves. AFter a week or two they're treated as two seperate groups and kept that way until the calves going to the backgrounder leave. That's usually a month to month and a half. At that point, any heifers we are keeping as replacments are turned back in with the cow herd. We've only been doing this for about 10 years now so there may be problems we haven't seen, but it's weorked well for us.

dun

I have heard or read several methods. what works best for you. i have heard the following ideas people use. out of sight and sound/let them see each other but put up hot fence or roll wire so they can't suck/ using a device on the calf that won;t allow the calf to nurse. thanks for any tips

 

[TheBullLady]

We've pretty much tried everything as well!

Actually what worked best for us was to wean totally away from each other. We had another ranch 21 miles away from the home place, with a good set of pens, and we'd haul the calves over there and wean them in the pens for three days, and then turn them out into grass traps until breeding age or shipping day.

The funny thing about that.. the cows would cry for about a day, day and a half, but the calves would holler for three days!

 

[lazyhill]

We wean side by side like Dun mentioned. Although I do it on different sides of a corral. Calves inside a large corral and cows outside. Once bawling stops, 2 days or so, we move the cows back to the pasture. A lot of people don't do this because it takes a lot of space to be able to separate them effectively.

We prefer this method because I have weaned and moved calves across town only to discover the following day, that I can't find a mama cow or two. It is amazing how some have such mothering instincts that they feel compelled to go searching for their calf.

 

[Anonymous]

We locked the calves up in a corral in the pasture with a water tank and their creep feeder and a bale of hay. The mom's hung around the corral for about 2 or 3 days pretty heavy, but after that they started grazing further away, and after a week they payed no attention to the calves. So then we moved the calves out up to the feed lot. They were given a bale feeder of hay and started on feed and never missed a beat. The only trouble we had was one mom figured out how to park real close to the corral so her calf could stick it's head through and continue to nurse. They had a little seperation anxiety problem in the end. Worked great for us.

 

[ronay0]

What about a little device you place in the calfs nose. I have seen them place them with the calfs at Crows Dairy in Arizona, they say its works. I wouldnt do it with the metal device. I seen the plastics, REALLY cheap too Less than $2.00 Dollars.