Weaning Calves

pakalasa

I thought I'd start a poll about the proper weaning of suckler calves. Couldn't help noticing at a mart recently that there was a lot of calves still bawling. To me that's a sign that they just came off the cows that morning.

Options as above;

1. I always wean my calves for at least 2 weeks before selling.
2. I never wean. I just take them off the cows that morning.
3. A bit of both. It depends on the time of year etc.

whelan1

i thought as part of the suckler welfare scheme all animals had to be weaned before selling? we dont sell many sucklers in the mart but we do wean them before selling, the noise of weanlings bawling in our mart is unreal

Atilathehun

whelan1 wrote: »

i thought as part of the suckler welfare scheme all animals had to be weaned before selling? we dont sell many sucklers in the mart but we do wean them before selling, the noise of weanlings bawling in our mart is unreal

You are correct. They should be weaned well before sale for the welfare scheme.
Thing is, big % of farmers in the scheme, just don't comply with that rule.

jerdee

if your not in the scheme they can get away with it but it fills marts with pneumonia due to stress .etc...

reilig

We have always weaned calves at least 2 weeks before selling, even before the SCWS. If you have a calf eating a good bit of meal for the 2 weeks before he is sold, he will always weigh beter.

greysides

whelan1 wrote: »

.... the noise of weanlings bawling in our mart is unreal

Who would buy weanlings they thought were snatch weaned? Is it they don't have a choice?

whelan1

greysides wrote: »

Who would buy weanlings they thought were snatch weaned? Is it they don't have a choice?

i think some people like hardship:o

vanderbadger

i think it kinda blackgarding cattle to pull them off cow and sell them but I see a good few lads around here do it and lads that would be tidy farmers, dont understand it really

reilig

vanderbadger wrote: »

i think it kinda blackgarding cattle to pull them off cow and sell them but I see a good few lads around here do it and lads that would be tidy farmers, dont understand it really

Lazeness IMO.

For some people, the SCWS is just a paper exercise - fill it in and you'll get €40 per cow extra. I know people who don't even feed meal.

The fact is that these SCWS measures are good practice and should be carried out on your farm whether you receive extra payment or not.

redzerologhlen

A lot of it going on around our side. The calves always look better the morning you take them off the cow then a fortnight after, I reckon it has a lot to do with it.

Juniorhurler

All of ours are early Autumn calved so are just about yearlings and therefore we don't have much choice in it, the cow does it for us.

Muckit

Tell us how the good farmer weans his calves properly?

reilig

Muckit wrote: »

Tell us how the good farmer weans his calves properly?

All the good farmers are in beef finishing, milk or tillage!!

Tora Bora

Muckit wrote: »

Tell us how the good farmer weans his calves properly?

First skill set required in the weaning of a calf, is the ability to fill out numerous forms, which you send back to the dept!
If you can't do that, then the calf has to stay on the cow for life:D

Figerty

Don't know if I qualify as a good farmer, but I house the calves with the cows and then give them meal. I always sell the cattle late in the year.

I let the calves drift out to grass during the day, through a creep gate. After a while the cows don't take any notice they are gone out.

After the required time, I stop the calves getting access to the cows and keep feeding the nuts. Pretty painless. the day the calves go to the mart, then won't even notice they are gone.

Now if I could get the cows to fill up the forms I'd be sorted.

redzerologhlen

Figerty wrote: »

Don't know if I qualify as a good farmer, but I house the calves with the cows and then give them meal. I always sell the cattle late in the year.

I let the calves drift out to grass during the day, through a creep gate. After a while the cows don't take any notice they are gone out.

After the required time, I stop the calves getting access to the cows and keep feeding the nuts. Pretty painless. the day the calves go to the mart, then won't even notice they are gone.

Now if I could get the cows to fill up the forms I'd be sorted.

That sounds to to be as good a system as any I have heard figerty.

pakalasa

The reason I put up the poll, is that a few people told me I was mad weaning them. Just load them up and sell them. With all the racket at the mart, I was beginning to think I was the only fool going to the bother.

BeeDI

pakalasa wrote: »

The reason I put up the poll, is that a few people told me I was mad weaning them. Just load them up and sell them. With all the racket at the mart, I was beginning to think I was the only fool going to the bother.

Same here. Lad in my shed last night, laughing at me when I showed him two pens I have weaned off. All his sold straight off the cow.
Crazy thing is, plenty dept guys at the marts, completely ignoring it. Same inspectors will do an on farm inspection, and nail you if you had a transport box of old dung, kept in the haggard, to manure a few spuds next April.

greysides

reilig wrote: »

Lazeness IMO.

For some people, the SCWS is just a paper exercise - fill it in and you'll get €40 per cow extra. I know people who don't even feed meal.

The fact is that these SCWS measures are good practice and should be carried out on your farm whether you receive extra payment or not.

The members of a certain farming forum across the water thought it was taking the piss to be expecting money for doing what they saw as normal good farming practice.

OMG!!! Dusbudding, early castration, meal-feeding........:eek:

Different attitudes.

1chippy

i was standing with two dealers last week when dad was selling two late weanlings. both had been weaned about 6-7 weeks earlier put on good silage and a small bit of meal. both dealers wouldnt believe me that they had been weaned yet they werent bawling. they both said they would try to avoid calfs straight off the cow due to stress and chances of pneumonia. I was bidding on one and personally thought she had been well weaned both dealers in agreement to this. The b***h is still bawling. , the impression i was getting of them was just because the other heifers were in good order the lads reckoned they werent weaned. how do you win?

JohnBoy

greysides wrote: »

The members of a certain farming forum across the water thought it was taking the piss to be expecting money for doing what they saw as normal good farming practice.

OMG!!! Dusbudding, early castration, meal-feeding........:eek:

Different attitudes.

I think it's right up there with this discussion group payment.

I understand payments as compensation where the action will leave you out of pocket. but things like the SCWS which are paying people to do a better job and the discussion groups which are paying people to get up off their holes and learn something are a joke.


(obviously though if everyone else is gonna get them then I wouldnt be so dumb as to refuse them)

pakalasa

Is it not a bit like tax-relief. It's there to incentivise people to do what is good practice and will at the end of the day, give a return to the exchequer and be good for the country as a whole. It's well known that the amount of pneumonia has gone down, since the suckler scheme was introduced.
A bit more lateral thinking like this and we mighn't be in the current mess we're in.

JohnBoy

on the flipside if we didnt have so many tax releifs we also might not be in the mess we're in.

Grecco

In fact I try to have them with the cows the morning they are sold, that way they aren`t bawling inside in the mart.

I did wean them one year and found that when they came off the cows milk they lost all there "puppy fat" and didn't look half as good so I said never again.
I now get top prices for my stock, in fact I had the top price Heifer in Ennis mart a few weeks back 250kg €865

Its hard to believe the poll results so far as all my neighbours are doing what I`m doing. Just go into any Weanlen sale and see the majority of 6 month old Weanlens aren't weaned

Dickie10

just undertaking weaning at the min,i had a barrier in a gateway set up with electric tape on top to stop cows rattling it, however calves wouldn't go under on their own so I brought the cows and calves up to a field I had at the house beside the pen and just run them in now for the last week .left a cow with them to get the calves eating meal then the last few days just had them on their own.there all mad eating meal now, I have a good pen and long chute and only 20 sucklers so all this makes it handier to separate them in a ffew mins. If I had more than 20 id prob buy a creep feeder.

yellow50HX

we seprate in batches starting with the oldest usually 10-15 at a time. Start by feedign straw in ring feeders outside to get them used to copying what mammy does. Seprtae them from the cows then stick them in a pen with heifers on one side and bulls on the other. stick silage in front of them and they'll be eatign it in minutes. strat feeding nuts after a day or so and they are sorted. off to the mart a few weeks later and do the next lot