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Thoughts on weaning.

T

tenbach79

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 22, 2008
Messages
476
Location
Colorado
What method do guys like to use? I did fence line weaning this year and getting by pretty good with it. Except for the dumb ash pheasant hunter this morning that hunted the trees next to my pen with 2 day weaned calves in it. This guy had some major ones because he never got permission plus the house is only 200 yrds from the trees. :x When I heard the shot I ran out to see what was going on only to see the calves spooked and all running toward the fence and running right over the fence and back out with all the cows. :shock: :mad: :o
 
That's a bad deal I always find they are harder to settle down a second time around. I hope you attached the hunter to the electric fence when you caught up with him. :wink:
Hunters have been terrible around here this year driving all through the neighbors winter wheat crops. Only had one to escort of my place thus far.
 
We do it the old fashioned way... pull the calves off, put them in good bedding and lots of hay in the corral, and get the cows away. It's all over in 3 days no matter what you do, so might as well do it the easy way :wink:
Too bad about the dumbell screwing things up for you, hopefully you get things right again without too much trouble. Some peoples children......
 
I did something interesting this spring (I retain my animals for direct marketing and I kept the calves on the cows last winter), The calves jumped through two strands of polywire to get back with the cows. Then I thought about these temp offest fences they are doing for deer, that mess with their depth perception. I added two more wires with with pigtails posts at two different angles from the 2 wire fence. So we have a row of vertical pigtails, two strands (I have insulator clips for the pigtail). The next pigtail at an angle put it about 35-30" high and about 18-24" from the top existing wire. The next pig tail at a lower angle put the wire about 12" off the ground.

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Something like that, before there were 2 jumpers, with this mod they all stayed in. They walk up to it and to judge if they can jump it they have to get too close to the first one.
 
We just load the calves up and haul them to the sale or bring them home 12 miles apart keep things at a minimum.Weaning calves is'nt rocket science a good corral works best here.
 
Weaning is easy that's for sure - the tough part is maintaining animal health and performance throughout this critical period. In my opinion a carefully planned and executed low stress weaning process will pay off many times over due to the reduced illness and treatment levels in the weaned calves. Personally I would like to see "weaning into the auction" outlawed as it just about guarantees illness and shipping fever.
 
We vaccinate a month or so prior. Separate cows and calves. Haul calves 50 miles to farm to nice pen with grass hay and lots of watering options. On day 3 or 4 they are moved out onto grass and then usually grass and swath grazing together. Not much stress as they like to graze and there are no cows around to distract them from that. We like to be weaned a month before they get treated with ivomec or something along those lines. Seldom do we have sick ones but if we do it is usually 4-7 days after the pour on.
 
The last couple years we did the quite weaning with the blabs and gave them their pre-wean shots but this year we just ran out of time this year. We been giving them a medicated crumbles and med-tubs which is really helping with keeping calves from getting sick. We have good corals here but when some dumb ash shots a gun within 50yrds of the pen it's sure going to make them run.
 
Out at the ranch, we gather everything into a 640 acre section from off the mountain. Then we run the calves through and precondition. We also seperate drys, bulls and summer calves off to go home or into another section. Then we turn out the bunch into an old hayfeild that's about 100 acres for a week or so. Then we send the calves home and turn out the cows. It works as smooth as possible. The calves bawl for a day or so and then get pretty dang content. If your gonna wean through a fence, it better be bulletproof. Cause once they go back, good luck! :wink:
 
We used to buy calves from the auction so have treated more then our share of fresh weaned calves. Now we raise our own and have just penned them up and let them bawl for a few days and get used to the corral, feed bunk and water bowls. We have had calves take a run at the bunks and make a mess. Last year i bought some 30 foot wind break panels and placed them in front on the two most likely places for a stampede.
This year we locked the cows in the corral and as soon as the calves were vaccinated we turned them out into a small grassy catch behind the house. They were out there for 3 nights before we brought them in and let the cows out of the corral. The cows were ready to go back to the hills and the calves ate at the bunk long enough to catch on to the pellets. Now they camp in the catch behind the house for the night and are trailed out and back to graze for the day and get a feed of pellets out on the grass.
 
It is next to impossible for us to give a pre-weaning vaccination 2 weeks before as gathering is a little more difficult than for most of you folks. We wean and preg the same day, calves are vaccinated shortly after weaning. They have had shots at branding so are covered some. We are treating a few now that have been weaned for two weeks, mostly because of adverse weather conditions.

When I was a teenager and worked at the stockyards one of the jobs I had to gain more hours was loading trucks after the sale. A local jokester left these shipping instructions for the trucker with the rest of the paperwork.......

Feed them all,
Ship the best,
Doctor the sick,
And bury the rest. :D
 
I fence line wean...five strand barbwire and offset electric. The pasture on the opposite side of the calf's pasture from the cows is ryegrass which is open to the calves. The 'trick' is something from Gordon Hazzard...I have an old grandma cow in with the calves. Does a great job of calming the calves and leading them where I want them to go.
 
I have done this before and have got along really well. Just came inside from fixin the mess they made and they have all settled down and no more bawling. I plan on givin them one more round of shots and head them on out to some wheat pasture here later on this week.

I just purchased a rawhide portable corals and a neighbor down the road has a daniels double portable alley that he uses with his corals to pre-vac calves, so I will give that a try next year, well thats the plans as of today.
 
Also it doesn't matter what kind of fence you have when you have 200 hd running to the same spot because they get spooked they will go through it. Thank god I didn't have any thing hurt from that little ordeal.
 
tenbach79 said:
Also it doesn't matter what kind of fence you have when you have 200 hd running to the same spot because they get spooked they will go through it. Thank god I didn't have any thing hurt from that little ordeal.
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That's a Big 10-4. We had them run over our bunks and tipped 5 or 6 pre cast concrete bunks over. :x
 
Big Muddy rancher said:
tenbach79 said:
Also it doesn't matter what kind of fence you have when you have 200 hd running to the same spot because they get spooked they will go through it. Thank god I didn't have any thing hurt from that little ordeal.
Click to expand...


That's a Big 10-4. We had them run over our bunks and tipped 5 or 6 pre cast concrete bunks over. :x
Click to expand...

That sounds like it would be good for a broken leg or two?
 
9 foot railroad ties set 2 1/2 feet deep and 8 feet apart. Then a 16 foot welded wire panel 5 foot tall panel. Covered by 5 lodgepole pines. 200 calves wouldn't dent it! :D A cow elk wouldn't get out either!
 
leanin' H said:
9 foot railroad ties set 2 1/2 feet deep and 8 feet apart. Then a 16 foot welded wire panel 5 foot tall panel. Covered by 5 lodgepole pines. 200 calves wouldn't dent it! :D A cow elk wouldn't get out either!
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Could be a pile of dead calves where they piled up. :?
 
Grassfarmer said:
Weaning is easy that's for sure - the tough part is maintaining animal health and performance throughout this critical period. In my opinion a carefully planned and executed low stress weaning process will pay off many times over due to the reduced illness and treatment levels in the weaned calves. Personally I would like to see "weaning into the auction" outlawed as it just about guarantees illness and shipping fever.
Click to expand...

And by whose authority would it be outlawed? Sounds a bit like messing with private property rights.

There are many ways to skin a cat and many ways to wean a calf. Sometimes one method works great one year and not worth a darn the next. One thing about taking calves to an auction on the day you wean, there is almost no chance they will get back with their mothers. Unless perhaps if your next door neighbor buys your calves. :roll: By giving preconditioning shots about a month before selling, most of the time calves can go through a sale barn and stay healthy. Just this morning I called the man who bought our heifer calves. He reported that they settled right down and are doing well. The 61 heifer calves I bought through the sale barn on the day they were weaned did likewise. They settled right down and are doing great. I give them wild hay for two days and then give them alfalfa on the third day. The diet is working well.

Grassfarmer, you should be tickled pink that there are those of us who ranch in a completely backwards fashion. As things are now, your "all natural" superb beef stands out from the crowd and sells for a premium price. If everyone did things the "right" way as you would like to impose upon all of us, the beef that stands out as "natural" with extra value now, would just be plain old commodity beef. Don't be sad, be glad. :wink:
 
We have purchased lots of calves out of the sale barn where Soapweed sells his calves. We always buy calves that have had "the works" (just like Soapweed prepares his calves). Rarely have a sick one. This year the calves we bought were gathered at the ranch in the snow, trucked 65 miles to the sale barn, went through the sale about 4 pm, were loaded on a truck immediately and had a 500 mile ride. They arrived about 20 hours after seeing their momma for the last time. AFter they arrived, we fill them up on 2nd cutting grass hay, and start them on a receiving pelleted feed. In three days they are quiet and chewing their cud. This year, it rained nearly every day for 3 weeks after their arrival. A handful got real snotty with a dropped ear, which I treated immediately with Draxin. Within 12 hours they were back to eating. Death loss is non existant. I give tons of credit to the ranchers like Soapweed who precondtion their calves. Sure makes life more fun for those of us who shell out the dollars when we get the last bid :wink:
 

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