Yard weaning is seen as an essential part of the overall education and management process on more extensively managed properties where Brahman and Bos indicus cross cattle are run. The weaning and training program may last up to days and includes feeding, drafting, working through the race and yarding from adjoining paddocks.
Animals that do not settle down can be marked for future culling. Temperamental animals are not suitable for feedlot or intensive fattening systems. Abrupt separation is a common weaning practice. The calves are drafted from the cows and moved as far away as possible. The cows and calves are difficult to move to their respective paddocks and both take longer to settle down.
It is more stressful than other methods for both the cow and calf. The more determined animals often break through fences to get back to each other or, alternatively, walk the fences.
The cows and calves are put in adjoining paddocks on either side of a secure fence. The cows will move to water and graze away for extended periods while the calves will group together on the fence. After days the cows are moved to a more distant paddock. It is important that the calves find the water. A few older animals in the mob may help settle the calves and teach them the run of the paddock. Creep weaning is a gradual "self weaning" process.
It causes minimal stress to the calves but requires more preparation and supervision. As the calves approach weaning age, give them access to a good quality pasture, or supplement crop in an adjoining paddock. A specially constructed "creep gate" or opening in the fence line or gateway allows the calves to pass through but not the cows see Agfact A2. The openings in the creep should be mm wide. The calves become accustomed to grazing away from the cows in the adjoining paddock.
Close the creep gate off at weaning time, leaving all the calves on one side of the fence, cows on the other. After a few days move the cows away. It showed clearly that yard weaning, compared to typical paddock weaning, resulted in better weight gain and reduced incidence of respiratory disease when these cattle were subsequently lot fed. Researchers said that these benefits followed when the following specific conditions applied.
The first four conditions are essential. Remove the cows temporarily from a camp and in their absence move the calves to another distant camp.
Cows tend to look for their calves in the camp in which they were last seen and this method should prevent the cows from breaking out of the camp. Exchange calves from two different herds. The calves will then have the company of cows. Some cross-suckling is, however, likely to occur. After weaning, the cow only drinks 45 litres of water and the calf about 15 litres, a net reduction in water consumption of between 30 and 50 litres each day.
Early weaning enables an earlier sale of non-productive, empty, cull or aged animals reducing feed and water use. The weight and condition of these sale animals will be higher and sale value potentially better. In drought situations, you can get your cull females on the market earlier than other producers before the price crash that commonly occurs as seasonal conditions worsen.
An earlier sale of cull females will also improve business cash flow and facilitate earlier procurement of supplementary feed. For a breeding herd approximately 30 per cent of financial returns come from cull cow sales. Producers that have adopted early weaning have found that the calves have become extremely quiet. In terms of labour efficiency, this is rated as significant on many properties as quieter cattle are far easier to muster and handle than wilder ones. The key criterion for early weaning should be cow condition.
In most situations you would aim to have calves at least 12 weeks of age or around kg live weight before weaning. By this age they require less protein and they are used to grazing or eating other foods. If cow survival is of concern, calves can be weaned earlier than this, but calves less than 80kg are harder to manage.
They may require some milk replacer in their diet and concentrates during the rumen development phase.
Calves with dry, coarse coats — 'woody calves' — are almost certainly not receiving adequate milk from their mothers and may do better if weaned onto high quality feed. Early weaning calf performance is greatly improved if calves are in mobs uniform in size and age.
A short calving period and a vet ageing the fetuses at pregnancy testing and cows being drafted into calving time groups will help with early weaning management. The potential energy savings from early weaning at different weaning weights and a range of calf growth rates is shown.
The energy savings available, along with the costs of the available feed sources, can be considered to make a decision of when to wean and what to wean onto. Feed calves some post weaning supplement while they are still on the cow. For example if calves are going to be given silage after weaning, feed silage to the cow-calf mobs a few times before weaning. Even if calves are being weaned onto good quality pasture, having some of their diet the same before and after weaning, can help them with the change.
Rumen microbial populations can require up to 14 days to completely adapt to a new diet. Consider introducing calves to post-weaning supplements slowly via creep-feeding two weeks before weaning. Consider vaccinating calves for pinkeye prevention 3 to 6 weeks prior to weaning or the peak onset of pinkeye. Do not combine stressful procedures like castration and dehorning with early weaning. Weaning itself is a very stressful procedure and subjecting a calf to further stress increases its susceptibility to disease and reduced weight gain.
Yard weaning is strongly recommended. Calves should be yarded to allow 4m2 per calf as a minimum, increasing to 6 to 8m2 for larger calves approaching kg. Where possible keep the yards damp to minimise pink-eye. Fly traps and backline insecticides will also reduce flies, a vector for the disease. Eye ointments and patches of heavy material or dust masks will provide relief for affected calves and prevent fly access.
Provide high quality feed such as lucerne hay or silage and clean water troughs. Avoid powdery feed sources that will result in dust irritating eyes leading to rubbing and scratching. Vaccination for clostridial diseases is important. Early weaned calves, because of the high quality ration they require post-weaning, are at risk of developing pulpy kidney.
Vitamin ADE injections are often advisable if the cows and calves have been on dry pasture or a grain diet for 3 to 4 months. Ensure all needles and tagging gear are kept clean and immersed in a suitable disinfectant to reduce infection rates. The younger the weaning age of the calf the higher the energy and protein levels need to be. Unless the feed quality is high, feed intake and animal performance may be restricted by small rumen capacity.
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