Weaning time is usually an ordeal for calves and cattlemen alike. It can be a real headache when stresses at this time in a calf's life lower his immune defenses and make him more susceptible to disease. But stresses of weaning can be greatly minimized with good management. And some stockmen are discovering the advantages of using non-traditional weaning methods.

The McNay Center at Chariton, Iowa, has been studying the effects of weaning calves on pasture, compared with the standard practice of drylot (corral) weaning. Dennis Maxwell, the Beef Cattle Research Supervisor for the Center, began weaning a few calves on pasture in the Fall of 1995. He got the idea from Jim Gerrish, a grazing specialist with the Forage Systems Research Center (University of Missouri), who has been weaning calves on green pasture for 14 years, and Maxwell decided to try it in Iowa.

He started by weaning 60 calves off the McNay Center's two-year- old cows, putting the calves in a pasture with woven wire boundary.

"We didn't do anything special in preparation except tighten up the fences a little," he explains. That group weaned so well he went ahead and weaned 150 calves off the older cows in the herd the same way. "I was really impressed with how well it worked," he says.

At this first test demonstration, he left a few companion cows with the calves, but now feels he didn't need them; the calves were fairly content as long as they had green feed. Their health was good all through the weaning period and by 20 to 30 days afterward they were in excellent condition to go on into the feedlot with no setbacks. "We only treated two sick calves out of the whole bunch, for respiratory problems, and that was several weeks after the actual weaning--probably not weaning-related," says Maxwell.

The next fall they weaned 250 calves at the Center, half of them on pasture and half in the feedlot. They did behavioral observations, tests on gain and feed efficiency for 6 weeks, and health studies using blood samples.

The tests were set up to actually measure the differences in how the two groups handled the stress. Maxwell was impressed at how well the calves came through their pasture weaning and is developing concrete data to back up his convictions.

The cattle used in this program are from the University's Beef Systems Breeding Project. In the first year's demonstration, the calves off the two year old heifers made an average daily gain of 1.06 pounds during the three weeks on pasture following separation from their mothers. The calves off the mature cows made a surprising 3.06 pounds of daily gain during their pasture weaning.

Maxwell attributes this better gain to the fact that the pasture quality for this second group was better than that of the first group. In subsequent trials the calves have made excellent gains during their pasture weaning.

Ranchers have traditionally believed that calves lose weight the first week of weaning, and sometimes take another three weeks to bounce back and start gaining again. Ranchers weaning feeder calves before selling them usually figured on having to keep them around for several weeks after weaning, to make up the lost weight; selling them too soon after weaning would result in lighter weights than selling them right off the cows. But with pasture weaning, this traditional logic can be thrown out the window. Calves weaned on green forage never quit gaining, and they do it on relatively cheap feed. By contrast, many feedlot weaning programs experience a weight loss or stand- still in weight, while using expensive feeds.

The lack of stress in pasture weaning could enable stockmen to change their tactics for disease prevention. Instead of having to vaccinate calves 2 to 3 weeks ahead of weaning, the calves can be vaccinated at the time of weaning, with no problems. They are not stressed enough to need the prevaccination, and their immune systems at this time are not compromised due to stress--so they are able to go ahead and build good immunity. This eliminates the need to handle these cattle twice, which in itself reduces stress, and is also more convenient in situations where it may be impossible to work the calves ahead of weaning. Pasture weaning has a number of advantages that deserve a closer look. ©