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Fence line weaning

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rancherfred

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This is a question for those of you who have done this and actually made it work. We have tried it in the past but haven't had a lot of luck with it. The calves didn't stay put. Does age of the calves have much of an effect on the success of fence line weaning? Do you need to have hot wire separating the cows and calves?

Last fall we brought the cows and calves in and separated them and put them in feedlot pens next to each other. They were separated by a five wire HT fence with a 6 joule fencer on it. We were able to keep them separated that way, and the calves didn't walk as much as they will on an abrupt wean, but that still meant we had to bring all of the cows into the corral and feed them for several days. I would rather keep them out in the pasture if I could. We keep hearing that this method works like a dream, but we haven't been able to make it work the way we keep being told that it should. I would appreciate any commentary from people who have consistently made it work.
 
Last year it was so wet and muddy that we tried fenceline weaning and it worked very well. We put up 5 new barbed wires (as tight as we could get them) on the fence between the cows and calves. We also ran a hotwire on both sides as well. Planning on doing the same again in a couple of weeks.
 
When I fence line wean I put a hot wire on the calf side that is between knee and hip high (I'm 6'3"), between two and three feet away from your barbed fence. On the cow side I run a hotwire about 6 in. above the top wire, I do this buy weaving fiberglas post through the barbed fence. By putting above the top wire at least six inches it will help keep cows from tangling your hot wire and barbed wire when they are walking the fence and swinging their tales. I have not ever had a calf get back with the cows. It really is not a big deal if you get a calf through the fence. If you have one cow get with the calves you will likely have the whole bunch mixed together again.
 
Being I am little cow man in terms of numbers. I am going to use blabs or weaning devices this year. Not to hijack the thread. But does or has anyone else here weaned their calves with these things?
 
I've been a party to a fenceline weaning party. Works rather well if you do the fence right, as has been suggested. Probably the most preferred method would be if you can have pasture on both sides of the fence, but if both cows and calves can't be on pasture, opt for the calves to stay on pasture so they don't have the dust and they can walk away from the cows to graze and become disinterested in the cows after a while. I'm sure you'll figure out how to make it a success this time. It's a lot less work than the application and removal of nose blabs, if the fencing aspect isn't a major overhaul.

HP
 
We do the fenceline weaning and we don't have electric fence. But we
do put the cows in the corrals/lots and let the calves be in the pasture.
We have found that putting the cows and calves in the pasture before
weaning and it being the same one you plan to put the calves
back in, that works really well because the calves will go back to where they sucked last
and lay down. Then of course, the cows are bawling, so they will get up
and go lay down by the fence separating them from their mothers. Water
is close and they are used to drinking out of the tank now, because their
mothes taught them in the time they were in the pasture before they
were weaned. And we do put a little hay out for them as well.
The problem with doing this, is we have to feed the cows hay in the corrals/lots
until they quit bawling. But it has worked well for us, and sure beats
doing it the other way (calves in the corrals, cows outside). FWIW~
 
I have a similar method to some above methods, except it only involves 100% polywire. The first time I tried it two weanings ago I had two strands only. A pigtail high, then I have some insulators that clip onto the pigtails and another strand halfway between the top and the ground. This alone DID NOT work. So then I put another set of pigtails at an angle away from the two stands towards the calves so that strand was between the two on the vertical. Cattle/prey animals have poor depth perception, they get to the first wire and have trouble judging the distance to the next two and don't dare to jump it. It fixed the problem and then tried it again on the last weaning and zero problems. I had a pen in between that I could sort the animals.

*
|....*
*../
|./

*=wire
| or / = pig tail
ignore the ".'s", it's just because spaces only are removed for some reason when I post it
 
Thanks for all of the input. One more question, what age of calf are you folks weaning?

We have used the nose flaps. Didn't work well enough for us to make it worth the trouble to use them again. Because of some other work that had to be done we ended up with them on for about ten days. Even with the extra time we still had an awful lot of bawling and walking. The one thing that we did get from the extra time was lots of sore noses. A significant number of calves must have learned to nurse with them because there were a lot that weren't weaned when we pulled them off the cows.

My question with both the nose flaps and the fence line weaning is how much the age of the animal affects the success of the process. Our calves are usually around five months of age. We start calving the second week of May and usually wean around the first of November.
 
Rancherfred...Not sure in Western Nebraska you are...that takes in a LOT of territory....but...if you are within an hour or so of Scottsbluff, Ty at Marker Ag Sure Crop (308-633-1057) ought to be able to help you. If you are nowhere near Scottsbluff, PM me and we'll see if there is someone close to you who can.
 
I've been influenced by the "crazy" people, I've weaned at 10 months for the last two years. I'm calving mid-May and keeping my calves all the way through finish.
 
I have good luck weaning and hauling the calves home leaveing the cows on grass or where ever they are at. There's no bullet proof way to do it. I do know if the calves are left near the cows they bawl twice as long as just removeing them all together.I put them in a good corral. Dairy farmer electric fence just pisses me off.
 
We've tried about everything...we let the calves out and lock the cows in because the calves do less damage to fences than cows. Weaning just isn't easy....Period. It takes 5-7 days no matter what you do.
 
I have left a quiet dry cow in with them the last couple of years and this really helps. The presence of a cow seems to calm most of the calfs down and shorten the bawling period.
 
We are trying something different again this year. We always have good luck weaning. If it is cold, we sometimes wean calves into a corral, but usually we turn them back out into the pasture they came off of, and move the cows a fence or two away. After last year, we now have a bell steer (the kids won't let us eat their bottle calf), so we are going to put him with the calves and graze them on meadowbrome/alfalfa pasture until they go into swath grazing/corn.
We will booster vaccinate, wait a week or two, then split the calves/cows in a 15 minute ordeal, send the cows one way and the calves another. I think the last few years it has been much more stressful on cows than on calves.
 
We put the calves in a corral near the house and send the cows out into the pasture for the day. At night the cows are corraled as far away from the calves as possible.

The cowboy who watches the place doesn't get a lot of sleep for those first few nights. :D
 

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