Every year, around the holidays, we wean our spring calves. What does weaning mean? Weaning is getting calves to stop drinking their mothers’ milk. We do this to give the expecting moms a well-deserved break before they calve again.
We try to wean the calves as stress-free as possible for both the mothers and the offspring. To do this, we usually put a gate between the mothers and the calves to prevent them from drinking. They can still smell each other and lick each other. The weaning process usually takes a couple of days before both parties are used to it.
We wean calves at around 6-8 months of age. We feed them high-quality baleage and have straw beds for them to lie in to make them as comfortable as they can be. We are preparing the weaned calves to be sent to market at a year old and we keep 2-3 replacement heifers a year.
If you guys have any questions about farming, please contact me through my contact page, and I will do my best to answer them. I will be posting a new blog post every Tuesday.
Lots of love,
Clairina