weaning

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sporder

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seperated a 7 mo bull from its mother afew days ago to wean. the question i have is what happens to the milk still being produced by the mother. her bag is huge with milk dripping from one teat. will this cause her discomfort?
 
It will cause her discomfort which will signal her body to quit making milk. Then her system will reabsorb the milk.
 
Only for a few days to a week. It's during this period that you have to be careful with her and watch she doesn't get mastitis. Put her on lower-quality ration or pasture, this should help speed up the dry-up process. She should completely dry up in a matter of 2 to 3 weeks.
 
thanks. i seperated the bull along with another into the field along side the mothers. i thought this would be a good way to wean them as the mother and calf can still see/smell each other but not feed. looks as though the calf may have nursed through the barb wire fency because in the 2-3 weeks they have been in seperate fields i have never seen her with a bag this big. the bull calfs are now well away.
 
Fence line weaning doesn;t work well with barbediwre. Works great with hotwire and pretty well with field fence.
 
Fenceline weaning works best if there is more than one strand present on the hotwire fence, especially if you are using electric fencing alone. Page-wire is also good, but expensive. And I believe fenceline-weaning is good if you have more than just one type of fence standing in the way between cow and calf.

http://animalscience.ag.utk.edu/beef/pd ... ASB312.pdf
That should explain most things.
 
Separating the mother and the baby by a fence is how I weaned my foal from her mom and it is also how I plan to wean my calf from my cow once the time comes. All our fences are "horse fence," Red Brand 2" x 4" wire fencing. It worked wonderful for my filly! Hoping it works the same for my calf too!
 
Stick a nose flap on him and leave him with his mother and quit worrying about your fences. Less stressful on him & mother. Does'nt walk the fenceline , does'nt go off feed, keeps on gaining, etc.
 
I bring them in and sort them according to size so the smaller ones don't have to muscle their way and get pushed from the feed. Two groups that within a couple months become one group as they learn to eat at a trough and hay from a bunk. By Christmas they go to another pen that gives them access to a round bale in a feeder outside, a water trough and grain inside a barn.
 
Something about what IluvAbeef said: the cows should be dry in 2-3 weeks. Can the calves be turned out with their mamma at this time or will they be able to get the milk flowing again? Most folks think that this process takes 30-45 days. Jusy wondering cause I have some heifer calves that are being weaned as we speak. Would like to get them out with the other cows in pasture soon cause they are living in a mud hole right now. They have been off of their mommas for over 2 weeks now. What are your thoughts?
 
expensive hobby":34qnn4av said:
Something about what IluvAbeef said: the cows should be dry in 2-3 weeks. Can the calves be turned out with their mamma at this time or will they be able to get the milk flowing again? Most folks think that this process takes 30-45 days. Jusy wondering cause I have some heifer calves that are being weaned as we speak. Would like to get them out with the other cows in pasture soon cause they are living in a mud hole right now. They have been off of their mommas for over 2 weeks now. What are your thoughts?
No they can;t be turned back in at that point. If they'll be able to induce milk production again isn;t the issue, it's that the nursing instinct won;t be broken in that short of a time.
 
Roadapple":37cuskjw said:
Stick a nose flap on him and leave him with his mother and quit worrying about your fences. Less stressful on him & mother. Does'nt walk the fenceline , does'nt go off feed, keeps on gaining, etc.

:nod: :nod:
 
tsmaxx47":2qjlpfus said:
Roadapple":2qjlpfus said:
Stick a nose flap on him and leave him with his mother and quit worrying about your fences. Less stressful on him & mother. Does'nt walk the fenceline , does'nt go off feed, keeps on gaining, etc.

:nod: :nod:

I've wondered about those flaps and read articles about them both pro and con. I guess the biggest draw back would be handling the calves twice, once to put the flap on and once to take it off.
 
TennesseeTuxedo":147umu5u said:
tsmaxx47":147umu5u said:
Roadapple":147umu5u said:
Stick a nose flap on him and leave him with his mother and quit worrying about your fences. Less stressful on him & mother. Does'nt walk the fenceline , does'nt go off feed, keeps on gaining, etc.

:nod: :nod:

I've wondered about those flaps and read articles about them both pro and con. I guess the biggest draw back would be handling the calves twice, once to put the flap on and once to take it off.

Not to mention there's a chance that a calf will figure out how to flip that flap up over its nose so it can properly suckle at momma without her kicking him. I've heard of that happening somewhere...
 
We've had pretty good luck weaning by the moon. First time we tried it was the most dramatic in terms of how absolutely quiet they were. We also make sure to put the weaned calves in the strongest pasture, if not at least one will find a weak spot to crawl through.
 
We went up to visit my in-laws last weekend and I had a big disagreement with my mother in law. She had put the 11 heifer calves up inside a locked barn for the first 5 or six days of weaning which left behind quite a lot of manure to be cleaned out (that was my job last Saturday). She didn't feel her fences were secure enough to keep them off their mothers and told me she's weaned like that for years. I asked her if she wasn't worried about them getting sick being cooped up in the barn like that but she said it wasn't likely.

Anybody else wean like that?
 
TennesseeTuxedo":2utygl68 said:
We went up to visit my in-laws last weekend and I had a big disagreement with my mother in law. She had put the 11 heifer calves up inside a locked barn for the first 5 or six days of weaning which left behind quite a lot of manure to be cleaned out (that was my job last Saturday). She didn't feel her fences were secure enough to keep them off their mothers and told me she's weaned like that for years. I asked her if she wasn't worried about them getting sick being cooped up in the barn like that but she said it wasn't likely.

Anybody else wean like that?

A lot of the old boys around here weaned that way. My FIL always shut heifers up in the barn for at least a week. When let out they may still be bawling some but the cows wouldn't answer. Once they hit outside and pasture most were fine.

fitz
 
She said that's the way they've always done it so who am I to argue right?

Anyways, it's kinda funny that after 25 years of marriage and being related to these folks I am just now getting interested in managing their farm. I suppose it's a confluence of their advancing age and my desire to get out of the rat race in the city.

I still believe fence line weaning is the way to go.
 

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