Weaning heifers

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Post Oak

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I separated a few heifers off yesterday to wean off of their mommas. How long would y'all keep them separate from their mothers before putting them back with them? I was thinking 30 days.
 
45 days has been or standard. Only ever had one go back to sucking and she didn;t do that till she was 6 months bred
 
dun":1eqptrg4 said:
45 days has been or standard. Only ever had one go back to sucking and she didn;t do that till she was 6 months bred

Have never got away with that so easy with this bunch. Heifers get weaned and stay in their own group until they have weaned their first calf.
 
I never let them get back to mom until after heifer has been bred, then all are turned out together on pasture. Never had a problem. I know mine would start sucking if only separated for a month or two. Not worth the risk.
 
how old are they, weaned some at 5 months this year & put back with herd after 4 months. older ones are more addicted to sucking & some will go back to it after 6 months. all are different
 
We keep weaned heifers away from their dams; for at least 2 years. When we wean, they stay with their own age group, are fed to grow and do not have to compete with bigger older cows. They are put at a pasture to be bred, again all their own age group. They calve, and are rebred in the same group. After their 2nd calf they are integrated back into the herd according to who we are breeding them to, and the different pasture conditions. We have 2 pastures that have some very steep terrain and we put younger cattle there and keep the older cows at the places with less severe hills. Maybe we are lucky to have more than enough places to do so. But I also think that they cannot be fed right and grown out the way they should if they are getting the tail end of feed etc behind older bossy cows. Have had some mixed groups and have never been satisfied with the way there are some boss cows that will just constantly keep the younger ones from getting what they should have. Sure it was different in the "old days" and in the wild. But we are containing these animals and controlling so much that they deserve a chance to be able to "get away " from boss cows and compete on an equal basis with animals of their same age and size group.
 
Jan - I'm with you on that train of thought. My yearling go to pasture WITH the mature cows, but as soon as we start feeding hay, the bred yearlings and the breds coming with their 2nd calf, all winter together. Then when they calve, they are kept separate from cows again until everything goes out on pasture. I feel there is no peer pressure out on pasture, and I don't have enough pastures to keep separate groups rotating.
 
Yes, Jeanne, I agree with what you are saying. Since we rent so many pastures, and most will only handle 6-20 head, it makes it easier to keep like age groups together and separate. I have a group of 10 first calf fall calving heifers and 6 virgin heifers together now all getting bred. They will be in 2 separate places for fall calving next year, because I keep the first calf heifers where they can be checked on daily or more often. These coming 2nd calf are being bred back to the easy calving bull, and I will watch them but not with the close scrutiny of the first calvers. After their 2nd calf, then I feel that their bodies are mature enough to handle our other bulls that are more for cows. But I think we are on the same page in general. We just have more summer pastures and can split them up better. The fall/winter places are more restricted now with losing the one place that we ran quite a few head.
 
You see some interesting things when you run mother/daughters/granddaughters together. I have seem some that graze together, some that mother calves together, and yes - - some that suck. The suckers are unusual, I think less than 1%.
 
Stocker Steve":3362dw5v said:
You see some interesting things when you run mother/daughters/granddaughters together. I have seem some that graze together, some that mother calves together, and yes - - some that suck. The suckers are unusual, I think less than 1%.
I've never noticed the family groupings. I had sort of expected to because dairy goats are very much that way. And that's with the youngsters only sucked their mother maybe once in their life at birth.
 
dun":2yao6kzw said:
Stocker Steve":2yao6kzw said:
You see some interesting things when you run mother/daughters/granddaughters together. I have seem some that graze together, some that mother calves together, and yes - - some that suck. The suckers are unusual, I think less than 1%.
I've never noticed the family groupings. I had sort of expected to because dairy goats are very much that way. And that's with the youngsters only sucked their mother maybe once in their life at birth.

It is a minority of cows, but some do it. Had a cow die on me over night and in the morning the yearling heifer was mothering up her brother next to the cows carcass...
 
Stocker Steve":2emfa7ur said:
dun":2emfa7ur said:
Stocker Steve":2emfa7ur said:
You see some interesting things when you run mother/daughters/granddaughters together. I have seem some that graze together, some that mother calves together, and yes - - some that suck. The suckers are unusual, I think less than 1%.
I've never noticed the family groupings. I had sort of expected to because dairy goats are very much that way. And that's with the youngsters only sucked their mother maybe once in their life at birth.

It is a minority of cows, but some do it. Had a cow die on me over night and in the morning the yearling heifer was mothering up her brother next to the cows carcass...
We have a lot of family groupings that hang together but quite possibly because I retain a lot of heifers specifically because of their lineage. One year I had 3 mother/daughter pairs calve on the same day not 150 yards apart. That said, I don't put my retained heifers back with their mamas until they're already in their 2nd trimester (earliest) but generally their 3rd. Never had one try to suck. That I know of. Knock wood!
 
Maybe I don;t notice it because through the years all of our cows now go back to just 3 cows.
 
We wean heifers at 6-8months age, they go back to the cows herd when they are big enough to be bred- around 18months age. Never had any problems. There are some cows which have good relationships and often keeps contact with their daughters, like grazing, lying together. But just a couple cows and usually just with one daughter.
 
TCRanch":3eo4vaog said:
Stocker Steve":3eo4vaog said:
dun":3eo4vaog said:
I've never noticed the family groupings. I had sort of expected to because dairy goats are very much that way. And that's with the youngsters only sucked their mother maybe once in their life at birth.

It is a minority of cows, but some do it. Had a cow die on me over night and in the morning the yearling heifer was mothering up her brother next to the cows carcass...
We have a lot of family groupings that hang together but quite possibly because I retain a lot of heifers specifically because of their lineage. One year I had 3 mother/daughter pairs calve on the same day not 150 yards apart. That said, I don't put my retained heifers back with their mamas until they're already in their 2nd trimester (earliest) but generally their 3rd. Never had one try to suck. That I know of. Knock wood!

Very common for mom and daughter(s) to calve within a couple days of each other.
 

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