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Columbia City, Indiana | Wondering about early weaning and it's effect on things like cow longevity. Seems like it would be a very positive thing for a cow to have a longer recovery period without having a 500# calf on her trying to suck. I've never considered it except when grass gets tight in a dry summer. But if calves were born in early April, and a guy weaned them at 90 days, that would really lessen the amount of grass mama needs, and maybe allow you to carry more cows. Does anyone practice this every year? Might require feeding the calves some sort of higher protein mix similar to a calf starter type of feed, 18% or so. Maybe the cost of that would negate the benefits on the other end, I don't know. If the calves had access to high quality feed would they grow as well as they would on mama's milk and grass? If I did it, I would probably dry lot the calves and give them high quality hay and a small amount of a calf starter type feed daily, maybe starting at 5# per head per day and slowly increasing it through the year. Never have enough grass in the late summer around here, so putting them on pasture probably would not be an option for me. Maybe 90 days is too early and 120 or 150 would be better. | |
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effects of Early weaning
