I think I have probably mentioned that ranching goes in seasons. We start out the calendar year with calving, then branding, going to summer pasture and weaning and pregging...Fall is the time for weaning. It's fall. It's time to start weaning.
There are different ways to go about weaning. Some ranches, most in fact, do what is called pre-weaning vaccinations. The cows and calves are penned a couple weeks before they are to be weaned and start the innoculation process that most ranches feel is so very important in calf health. We don't pre-wean, instead we give shots the day we pull the calves off the cows and then booster the calves a couple of weeks later. In my opinion, it isn't as good as pre-weaning. The reason we don't pre-wean is because our cows are such buggers to pen. They are good mamas and they know what's coming....and they DON"T want you messing with their babies. This leads me to the other part of our weaning process...
Pulling the cows off the calves. Again, there are different preferred methods by different ranches for this process also. Weaning is considered (and rightly so) a high stress time for the calves. It's the start of life without mama. They have to figure out about eating and doing all the things that mama took care of for the first few months of their life. It's the time in their life they are most likely to get sick...and die. We like to make this as low stress as possible on Junior, so we lock the cows up in a pen for three days and turn Junior back out in the pasture where he and mama were for several days prior. It's a place the calf already knows. He knows where the water is, he knows where mama WAS (the place he last nursed) and he'll go back there to look for her. So for three days, mama is in a pen and Junior is out in the pasture. He'll walk back and forth a lot of times in those three days. And do a lot of bellering. Hopefully, it isn't too dry and dusty so the calves don't stir up a lot of dust doing all that walking back and forth. That's very hard on their lungs, breathing in all that dust when they are stressed anyway. Pneumonia is the biggest illness that we have to battle at weaning.
At the end of the three days, the cows are preg checked (the vet comes and checks them for pregnancy), poured for worms and lice and vaccinated. By this time, they are sick and tired of being in a pen with pretty much nothing to eat and just a drink of water. The cows that check to be pregnant will be moved to a pasture a couple of miles away, fed a good meal and have a lot of grass to eat. They'd still take Junior back if he was there, but they are pretty concerned with taking care of themselves right at this moment.
On the fourth day, Dad and I start penning the calves. We go out horseback and bring the calves into a big pen where feed bunks have been placed. We want them to get started eating out of the bunks as soon as possible, so we usually have bunks sitting outside the pen during the three days when mama was locked up. The bunks will have a soft cube in them and some of the calves will start eating at them. They smell kind of sweet and yeasty. A good smell to calves, I guess. They are locked up for a few hours to get them looking at the bunks and hopefully eating out of them.
At day seven, the calves are getting pretty well weaned (not great, but pretty well). They are figuring out what you want them to do and if they aren't sick, most of them are eating. We have to keep a close eye on them to make sure they aren't showing signs of getting sick. Most of those strains of illness act quickly. One day they look a little droopy and the next.....they are dead. If we have a majority of healthy calves (which we usually do) day seven or eight is the day they are moved to a new pasture so the process can begin again with the next bunch to be weaned.
We will wean four bunches of calves this year. I'll give you more details as they become available...but this will give you an idea of what we're doing. We're pulling the calves off the first bunch on the 1st of October. If I have any gumption left after that, I'll let you know how the day goes.
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