Question?

[Rob & Alison Kirk]

Weaning is not a problem for us either....the spring calves are weaned in December (8 months of age), this will be approx 21 days after housing, so that they are used to their new surroundings. The calves have usually settled down after 24/36 hours. The cows will have almost dried off by this time, and are carefully monitored for mastitis, having three months' rest before calving again. Autumn calves born outside in September remain with their dams inside until April, when they are weaned & kept indoors in their respective group before turnout in May. The dams are fed straw and not turned out until fully dried off. Careful monitoring prevents any serious case of mastitis and can pay dividends when it is caught early and treatment given preventing serious
problems.

Alison Kirk

[Duncan MacIntyre]

I grew up in the environment of traditional hill sheep and cattle farming, had the traditional Animal Husbandry lectures etc at Vet School, and have discovered for myself by accident that there is little need to worry about weaning calves at a particular time unless the cow is needing to keep more flesh on. Due to lack of enough separate enclosures I have had several cows running with their calves right up to the point of next calving, and a few weeks before the next calf is due a mutual agreement seems to be reached and suckling stops. I anticipated trouble when the cow calved, with the older calf wanting a share, but that does not seem to happen. Now when I house them for the winter I pen any calves over 9 months separate but adjacent to cows, and smaller ones get left with the mother till the next calf is due or until they go out in spring when I put them to separate fields.

I have known keepers of traditional suckler cows ( one herd of blue-grey (Shorthorn X Galloway) comes particularly to mind) blame thin cows on calves being left on the cows too long but in retrospect I suspect it was lack of feed rather than too much drain on the cows by the calves.

Duncan