by Heather Smith Thomas

The worst time of a calf's life is weaning. He's taken from mama and pasture and put in a corral with a bunch of other bawling calves, or spends several days being sorted, worked and hauled to a new home.

Preconditioning programs to get vaccinations done ahead of weaning can help, but there are still instances where weaning stress results in sickness, lost production, costly medicines, and deaths. Anything a producer can do to minimize this will enhance the profit picture.

An Oregon livestock nutritionist, Mike Mehren, Ph.D., and a Washington veterinarian, Bob Lundgren, DVM, combine their consulting abilities to help ranchers prepare cattle for the feedlot. Mehren says, "We talk about feeds, bunk management, calf health, types of vaccines to give and where they should be given, water (quality and location), dust free pens, handling (no dogs or hot shots) — a total management program. If you leave one part out, it won't work as well."

Lundgren says preconditioning programs are nothing new; many ranchers have been doing these things for 20 years. But we need to keep remembering to handle cattle better; sometimes it's easy to let a few things slide.

"Some ranchers use killed vaccines at the ranch, and it's safe for them because their cattle never get exposed to those diseases.

“But once those calves hit the real world and get shipped somewhere else, it might not be enough protection," he says. He and Mehren advise using modified live virus vaccines and carefully managing them, like not mixing up more than one bottle at a time if it won't be used quickly; it has to be fresh. These are some of the many issues that make a difference.

On a year like this with calf prices over $1 a pound, many ranchers are cautious about what the market will do, not knowing if it might drop again. They are anxious to take advantage of good prices, and some have hurried to sell calves without taking time to precondition them, says Lundgren.

"When we go to a ranch to evaluate the weaning system, we look at everything. We emphasize dust control and ways to keep the calves from walking themselves to exhaustion," he says.

He suggests putting big bales of straw or grass hay in the pens, as obstacles to slow down the calves. If they have to walk around those bales, they don't travel as much. He also recommends confining calves in very small areas, in small bunches, if possible. This cuts down on the dust, and stress. Smaller groups are always less stressed than cattle in large groups.

No matter what kind of ration you put in the feed bunks, the newly weaned calves need something very tempting and palatable to entice them to eat. Lundgren suggests putting some fine oat hay or very fine alfalfa-grass hay on top of the ration so they'll eat and start eating down into the ration. "The main thing is to get feed into them as quickly as you can, in a form they will like.

"We also make sure they have adequate water and can find it. Cattle seem to go to water by smell. If you have a very clean type of closed water system and they've never drunk from that kind of waterer, they may not find it. Location is important," he says.

Some ranchers let a trough run over so the calves can hear and smell the water, but you don't want to make a mud hole and end up with foot rot or coccidiosis.

Lundgren used to do a lot of consulting for feedlots, and tells about one at Nyssa, Oregon, that was on an island in the Snake River. "The calves couldn't find the water troughs. It took awhile for us to realize what the problem was. The cattle smelled water all around their pens, and this confused them. We recommend a trough where the water is brought in from the top and allowed to splash down--so the calves can hear it, see it and smell it." ©