haul or wean

[M-5]

I agree with both methods and to clarify. I pull calves and pen them for a minimum of 3 days. during this time the mamas and calves bawl a lot. after 3 days things are pretty calm. I feed them and walk around in the pen and they are fairly calm and they know how to eat. I load them the next sale day and they are gone. I cant ever remember cutting a calf off a cow and putting him on the trailer. Now I have loaded a cow and left her unweaned calf at home. So technically my calves are not weaned and conditioned to standards but they are ahead of majority of calves at the barn.

 

[TCRanch]

At the risk of subjecting myself to intense scrutiny . . . We typically wean our calves when they are 5 - 7 months old. We cube year 'round (very little in the summer, just enough to keep an eye on them) so there is no need for creep - most of the calves are eating cubes by the time they're a month old. Bulls are pulled off at least 3 weeks prior to weaning because every heifer gets a shot of Lutalyse so we can sell them guaranteed open. All calves get their 2nd round of vaccines at weaning. Not true fence line weaning but across the road in another pasture. We wean the calves for a minimum of a month to watch for any signs of sickness or abortion. Could we make more money cutting back on our procedures? Possibly/probably/maybe. But our calves also have a good reputation & we sell a lot of them private treaty. And a complete health history is provided for the ones we do take to the Sale Barn. Besides, I don't want to sell potentially unhealthy calves, the same way I make sure an unhealthy cow is slaughter only.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

At the risk of subjecting myself to intense scrutiny . . . We typically wean our calves when they are 5 - 7 months old. We cube year 'round (very little in the summer, just enough to keep an eye on them) so there is no need for creep - most of the calves are eating cubes by the time they're a month old. Bulls are pulled off at least 3 weeks prior to weaning because every heifer gets a shot of Lutalyse so we can sell them guaranteed open. All calves get their 2nd round of vaccines at weaning. Not true fence line weaning but across the road in another pasture. We wean the calves for a minimum of a month to watch for any signs of sickness or abortion. Could we make more money cutting back on our procedures? Possibly/probably/maybe. But our calves also have a good reputation & we sell a lot of them private treaty. And a complete health history is provided for the ones we do take to the Sale Barn. Besides, I don't want to sell potentially unhealthy calves, the same way I make sure an unhealthy cow is slaughter only.

You are doing things the right way. I would not have expected any less.

 

[kenny thomas]

Threads like this, are what keep me coming back. Lots of logical discussion, and insight.

If the price keeps slippin you could get less. That's why it's an odd year for decisions like this.

I feel that when prices are slipping it is even more important to wean the calves and have them ready for anyone to be proud to buy them. I will wean mine early next month and put them in with calves I have been buying and feed them all until early December for a preconditioned sale. Maybe the wrong decision but thats what I am gonna do.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

For sevarel reasons I would wean them and then sell them in early November. Right now selling un weaned calves is a bad move in my opinion, we are getting in to the high risk time of year and there's alot of sickness and alot of calves having to be doctored, that of course makes weaned and vaccinated calves still sell ok right now when there's alot more pressure on the bawlers.

 

[Bigfoot]

There is a guy, that lives a couple of places down from me. Not sure how many cows he has. Maybe 20, not over 25. He calves year round, like a bunch of us in this area. He sells every calf on his place the first week in December every year. It doesn't matter if it was born thanksgiving, or in January. He's a nice guy, and I haul them for him some years. He has no idea, which calf goes with which cow. He "suspicions" a cow has been open for a long time if she gets mud fat. Zero herd health plan. He coaxes them in an old tobacco barn to even be able to sort them. Long story short, It cost us all a little when a producer uses that type of management. I'm not saying he's a bad person, or he's even going about wrong. It's his place, and his cattle. He can do as he pleases. I'm just saying enough cattle hit the market from farms like that to decrease what the rest of us get. Sort of a guilt by association type scenerio.

 

[tnwalkingred]

I've sold calves both ways and have had mixed results. I've sold calves right off their mamas that topped the sale and also held onto calves for 60 days that I lost on because I was inexperienced and they didn't gain weight. With that being said I'm in 100% agreement with BF. The industry as a whole will be better if we put a better product out for sale. Weaning is a part of this just like culling cows and choosing the right type of bulls. Many here in middle TN wean with the trailer and think they are ahead. These are also the ones that said cutting bull calves was pointless because they brought almost as much per pound and gained more weight. I was at the sale till 11 o'clock last night and I saw some of those same people who were crying because their bull calves took a hit. I just smiled and thought I better get home and check on the one whom I just castrated. Just my two cents so take it for what it's worth. The important thing for anyone to remember is to try different things and figure out what works best for you.

KW

 

[dun]

If you vaccinate with Pfizer products you can enter the calves (it's free) in their weanvac/selectvac program. You get cards for the claves stating what they have had. I take them to the salebarn along with the calves. Don;t know that it helps but I've never been disappointed with the price they bring compared tp others at the same sale.
http://www.selectvac.com/

 

[Dave]

I cut way back on the cow/calf when I started raising bred heifers. But before I did that I weaned all my calves on Purina Pre-Con 5. I swear by that feed for weaning calves. By day 3 there is no bawling, just the sacking of lip. When I started using it I weighed a trailer load of calves at weaning. I weighed the same calves two weeks later. No weight loss. I feed 5 pounds a day for the first ten days after weaning and then switch over to what ever feed I plan to use.

We don't get that premium here that some of you get for light calves. Yesterday at Toppenish they had 2,900 feeder calves. The top end on 5 weights was $2.50. The top end on 7 weights was $2.21. That is $1,250 versus $1,547. To get that top price they better be weaned and vaccinated. I can afford to put that extra 200 ponds on for an extra $297 dollars.

And back to the original question. I agree with Bigfoot. Not weaning and preparing a calf for the next step is doing the industry a disservice.

 

[bird dog]

Sure your trailer weaned calves will do good and maybe ring the bell but how much shrink did you incur by going this route. In my experience if you start them on creep a couple weeks before weaning, and continue a couple weeks after weaning, they will regain all their weight that weaning takes off of them and will add some weight to boot. Your shrink then will be in the 2 to 4% range instead of 6 to 8% that your unweaned calves will suffer. On 600 lb calves that can be a 50 lb difference in your favor and you are sending a much better calf to market. If you are sending calves to a sale where they feed them something like at OKC your shrink will be almost nothing if they are used to eating.
TexasPawPaw even gets his to gain some but mine usually shrink about 1 to 1 1/2 % at OKC.

I feed them all they want while fence line weaning and then feed them every couple days for the next two to three weeks and give them some good grass pasture or hay. It costs me about $25 a head.
These buyers around here can easily tell a group of weaned calves and will pay up accordingly especially this time of year when calves get sick easily.

I have mentioned before that I weigh just about everything coming in and going out. I very rarely sell anything that hasn't been weaned at least a couple weeks.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Good post bird dog.

 

[kenny thomas]

If you vaccinate with Pfizer products you can enter the calves (it's free) in their weanvac/selectvac program. You get cards for the claves stating what they have had. I take them to the salebarn along with the calves. Don;t know that it helps but I've never been disappointed with the price they bring compared tp others at the same sale.
http://www.selectvac.com/

Good program.
Here Berhinger Ingleheim (yes im sure I spelled it wrong) helps us sponsor a preconditioned sale. Every calf in their sale has 2 rounds of their product and if there is a health problem later the company works with the buyer to make it right.

 

[Lazy M]

The past several years I've fed for 90 days after weaning. After the cost of feed/hay I calculated that I've made around $120/hd doing this. With the prices going down, that margin will probably be tighter this year, but even if it gets cut in half it would still be worthwhile to me since I'm able to put together a decent number. Now if I only had a few it probably wouldn't be worth pulling the mud boots and coveralls on every cold night. As has already been said, it all comes down to numbers.
Of course if one or two dies it was all a waste of time..

 

[Brute 23]

Sell them asap.

There is very little margin and a lot of risk in keeping calves. It's a volume game so if you not playing with decent size groups it's not worth the hassel.

Buyers will not reward you for any thing you do. It's their job to buy low and sell high. Any risk you assume only puts more money in their pocket.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

http://feedlotmagazine.com/?p=6396

 

[Son of Butch]

Buyers will not reward you for any thing you do.

Perhaps, but as Sim-Ang-King pointed out, they will dock you.

Here if your calves are not announced as "VIP" your cattle may get docked.
Around here cattle are announced as VIP when they enter the ring if they have been enrolled in the sale barn approved
vac. program and written dated documentation signed by the owner or a Vet accompanies the delivery of the cattle.

 

[Brute 23]

Buyers will not reward you for any thing you do.

Perhaps, but as Sim-Ang-King pointed out, they will dock you.

Here if your calves are not announced as "VIP" your cattle may get docked.
Around here cattle are announced as VIP when they enter the ring if they have been enrolled in the sale barn approved
vac. program and written dated documentation signed by the owner or a Vet accompanies the delivery of the cattle.

They are going to dock you anyways... might as well let them do what they charged you for.

 

[Dave]

Buyers will not reward you for any thing you do.

Perhaps, but as Sim-Ang-King pointed out, they will dock you.

Here if your calves are not announced as "VIP" your cattle may get docked.
Around here cattle are announced as VIP when they enter the ring if they have been enrolled in the sale barn approved
vac. program and written dated documentation signed by the owner or a Vet accompanies the delivery of the cattle.

They are going to dock you anyways... might as well let them do what they charged you for.

Here vaccinated weaned calves will bring 10 to 15 cents more than non-vaccinated weaned on the truck calves. I keep hearing people talk about the risk of weaning calves. I can honestly say that I have never had an issue with my own calves weaning them. I certainly have had issues with fresh calves that were weaned on their way to the sale barn. But vaccinated healthy calves that are on a good mineral program and haven't been exposed to outside bugs seem to me to wean off just fine.

 

[Brute 23]

.10 - .15 is not worth it to me. They can do it cheaper than I can.

If more people would raise hardy cattle and not these babied pets we wouldn't have to worry so much about every one else's cattle getting ours sick. :tiphat: Natural selection is the best vaccine there is. Cures most any thing.

 

[slick4591]

Anything I sell private treaty I'm putting a nose flap in 5 days prior to pick up. My clients have told me the calf is fine and doesn't bawl once they get them unloaded. If they are going to the barn I trailer wean.