How Early to wean
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Chap
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typically wean ours at about 120 days give or take. I like to wean around Aug 15 - Sept 1 on march and april born calves. by that time calves have been on creep for 2 month or better and seem to take to feed pretty well. Several studies have shown that 120 days is old enough and you can keep cows in better shape along with saving some pasture.
TJ
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Chap said:
^ 120-150 days works well. Like you mentioned the cows stay in better shape, eat less, and I think the calves are more efficient & grow better too. I've always heard it's cheaper to feed a cow and a weaned calf, than it is to feed the same 2 animals as a cow/calf pair... I believe it!
Now here I am going to get some disagreements from others. My professor and I had along discussion about this at school and had a small trial on the school farm with this. At 90-100 days the calves immune system is supposed to be stronger than the immune system of a calf at 150 days. We weaned 3 calves at 95 days and none got sick at weaning, all grew really well and went to feed pretty quickly. Out of the calves weaned at 150 days, a few got sick, a few did not switch to feed quite as quickly, and the rest were just fine. We like to wean at 90-100 days and it works well for us. Granted you struggle with some for a few days, but in a show cattle perspective, it makes breaking them a bit easier, and you can get them in and get heads and tails clipped quicker, which for us is imporant since we calve some cows out in late April and early May not giving us much time to get them marketed before all the big sales. JMO
Jill
Well-known member
We weaned almost all of our calves this year from 70-120 days, this is the 1st year we have gone so early so I don't have anything to compare it to, but after a very hard winter the cows are in much better shape and it didn't seem to slow the calves down at all. We do creep our calves from 2 weeks old and they continue on full feed, we are a show oriented program so I don't know that this would transfer over to another type of program, but it worked for us.
AAOK
Well-known member
Ours were show cattle only, mostly heifers. Once we learned what we were doing, we separated from the mothers every calf which might be show worthy at 2 - 3 months. The calves could still nurse through the fence in the morning and the evenings. Within a month the calves would wean themselves and be on full show feed + mineral. My theory: get that muscle development and fat cells going as soon as possible. Our calves were always ready to show at 5 months, or less.
SKF
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- Apr 24, 2007
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We wean at 120 days.
farmboy
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we wean after our fair because our barn is so small, been nagging at dad to build a new one (argue) lol so mostly feb. calves wean in aug.
I gotta chime in on this topic. We don't wean until calves are at least 180 days old on 95% of our herd. This year, inputs (feed) are expensive and our grass is paid for. Unless you can put weight on for less than 95 cents per pound, your best bet is to leave em out there with mom. Yes, I know, we all love those cute, squishy looking hairy cattle, but come on folks, this is the beef industry, keep inputs low, and profits up...............Superior was selling 550# calves for Oct delivery yesterday for $120.00 on steers and $110.00 on heifers. Those are for pot loads, not singles at the salebarn. You can back those small lots up $10.00, especially if you take them in and ten head get cut 3 ways. Feed is costing y'all $300.00 per ton. Here is the math. $.15 per pound of feed *7.0 conversion rate = $1.05 cost per pound of gain. If you creep in the pasture, and don't wean, your conversion will be better on the purchased creep due to the calf eating milk as well as creep feed. This is a year to tighten the belt and hang on in my opinion. I truely believe that our passion for showing will be slowed down in the future due to cost of production (gas, feed, electricity to run the cooler, hotel bills, gas, gas, gas). Not wanting to vent here, but I pay the bills at our little ranch, and right now it hurts.
Haven't had time to nap. got home late Sat night, raked and baled alfalfa Sunday, hauled it all home Monday before the rain, found 3 pastures of MTY mineral feeders and lots of thistles that need sprayed, so am a little on the grumpy side. Didn't get a chance to talk to the Campbell gang, but they should be exited. Helping to organize, and host and event like last week is a bit of an undertaking. The one shining star is Faye was high point individual in the prospector I. The only calves that we early wean are a couple per year for state fair. We learned last year that weaning in 100 degree weather wasn't a good idea. Once our kids are older, we'll probably hit some fall shows, so weaning early will be necessary. The other reason we don't wean early is that I am somewhat lazy..................
