weaning calves 7months old

[mds]

I have 5 calves in the 6 to 7 month age range that I need to wean. not
going to sell them right now or I might just ship them out. If I seperate
them from mama, how long before I can return them to the herd. And
what is the best way to seperate them. put up in the barn or adjacent
pasture. any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jw]

If you have an electric fence you can just section off enough area for them to stay in. Just be sure they have adequate food, water and shelter. I kept mine in about three months and it worked fine.

 

[Anonymous]

I have found that the easiest way to wean is have the calves separated by a wood paddock in the pasture next to their mom's. I like to have them with other cows that they are used to being with and they can be the ones to walk away from mom and not mom walk away from them ( depends alot on how you are set up) It seems easier on them when it is their own decision to follow the other cattle to get food and water instead of just hang out by there mom. I have tried them the other way also with mom in with the other cattle and the calves by themselves in the paddock and it just seemed more stressful for them. The more time you can keep them seperated the less chance you will have them start nursing again on mom. I would say at least around 3 months.

 

[dun]

We fencline wean in adjoining paddocks. The calves are in the paddock with the highest quality forage. They got used to coming up for grain when they were just a couple of months old when we would bring everyone up for breeding every day or so. Even when they haven't had grain in months, they remember the grain bucket. Weseperate them for 4 to 8 weeks. When we ship the ones that are leaving we turn the retained stuff back in with the cows. We use a single strand of polywire, they;ve been in hot wire their entire life so they don't even mess with it. After the first 4-5 days we start moving the cows further away. It seems like the weaning process is harder on the cows then the calves. Anyway the cows are the ones that make all the racket. The calves don't seem to mind all that much, they just are used to the company. By the time they're 6-7 months old the teat is more of a toy or pacifier then an actual nutrition source. With fencline weaning and on a minimul ration of grain but high qaulity pasture or hay the calves run around 2 lbs a day rate of gain.

dun

I have 5 calves in the 6 to 7 month age range that I need to wean. not
going to sell them right now or I might just ship them out. If I seperate
them from mama, how long before I can return them to the herd. And
what is the best way to seperate them. put up in the barn or adjacent
pasture. any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[nrs farm]

I've been reading about the two step process of weaning and thought I'd give it a try next fall. You can read about it here http://beef-mag.com/ar/beef_weaning_twostep/index.htm . Basically you put the antisucking guards on the calves, leave them with the cows about 10 days, then separate and remove the guards. It is supposed to be a lot easier on the cows and calves. Biggest problem would be running them through the chute to put on and remove the guards (2 times). We're just a small time outfit though (25 cows) so it would not be a real problem for us to catch them etc. Possibly the guards may come off though...never used them.

In my case, our biggest problem is the bawling. We live fairly close to town and the neighbors can here the cows bawling at night. Not too many complaints but I know it bothers some of them. Keeps me up usually as well. Tried the hot wire approach but they broke through. We generally separate them between two different buildings. Unfortunately they still here each other yet. Tried to separate in the barn with gates but seems like they bawled all the louder when they could see each other.

 

[TLCfromARK]

We keep them in a corral for 6-8 weeks, plenty of hay/water and some feed everyday. Then we turn them out in a pasture to themself away from the main herd and keep the feed on them until they're old enough to breed. We cull around this time any we don't want as replacements. As one poster said, once they learn to like feed it easy to catch most of them. ;-)