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What age do you wean highland calves?
Highland calves can and should be weaned between the ages of 6 to 10 months of age.
When should calves be weaned from their mothers?
For dairy and bottle calves: At two months you should begin to feed the calf grain. At about 3 months the calf should be eating hay and be limited to 1 bottle of milk a day. At 4 months the calf should be weaned. For beef calves, they should be weaned when they are 6 to 8 months of age by separating them from their mothers for a few weeks to several months. Beef calves can be naturally weaned at about 10 to 11 months of age when the cow decides when her calf needs to be weaned. The weaning time will depend on how well the calf has grown, the body condition of the cows, the market a producer wants to target, and pasture condition and/or winter feed supplies. Some producers may be forced to early-wean their beef calves when they are 3 to 4 months of age due to decreased pasture conditions like drought, and/or the calf is "pulling his/her dam down" too much (i.e., the cow is loosing condition feeding her calf when she should be gaining when lactating).
When do you wean calves off calf starter?
You will want to wean at about 5 months of age, be sure to gradually wean the calf, start mixing more water than starter until they are drinking just water, you can do this for about a week or even two. Be sure that the calf is eating forage and start feeding it a calf starter grain (if you haven't already) it is going to need more proteins than calves raised by their mothers.
How do you keep beef cattle from producing milk after calving?
You do not! In a beef herd the mother (dam) is kept for many years to breed the 'beef' offspring that spend 7 to 9 months sucking mothers milk and grazing. This is a suckler herd. A beef breeder. Answer 2: Like the above poster said, you do NOT keep beef cows from producing milk after calving. However, the only reason you should let beef cows (or a beef cow) dry up is if her calf died and there is no other orphan calf she should or can foster. Other than that, beef cows should not be dried up because they have a calf to nurse, which needs their milk in order to grow into a healthy heifer/bull/steer. Beef cows are not like dairy cows where their calves are taken away from them at birth: with beef cows, the calves stay on their mommas until it's time to wean them at 6 to 10 months of age.
How old is a weanling?
10 months Some people wean at 6 or even 4 months old (but this has proven that foals weaned early are more likely to have vices) However, in the wild a foal will not be weaned until it is a year old, and if it is a filly, they may nurse for even longer. The best thing to do is to let the mare decide when to wean the foal, unless the mare is rapidly losing weight, in which case it would be healthier for the mare to wean the foal early.
Lactation period of cow and goat?
A dairy cow will lactate for about 10 months (~305 days) each year before having to be dried up prior to giving birth to her next calf, or until she loses productivity or dies of illness or natural causes. Dairy cows will typically be lactating for 10 months out of the year; some may go longer if they are continuously milked. Beef cows, on the other hand, typically will lactate or give milk for 6 to 8 months (~205 to 265 days), sometimes up to 10, before they are weaned from their calves, or when the cows themselves decide to kick their calves off before giving birth to their next calf. For those producers who would rather let the cows wean their calves naturally (called natural weaning), the lactation or milking period typically lasts for around 10 months. Of course lactation period for cows also depends on forage availability. Beef producers will wean calves early (often at around 3 to 4 months of age) if there's not enough feed or feed quality is too low to support lactating cows. This is a practice that is done often during periods of moderate to severe drought, when there often isn't enough grass or fodder to support the lactating beef herd. At this rate, calves are sold a bit earlier, or kept in a separate area to be fed until the actual sale time, allowing cows to dry up earlier and enabling them to be able to eat lower-quality feeds without compromising milking ability and the calves' reliance on their mothers' milk.
How much does a calf cost?
Calves are priced based on weight, breed, type and condition. This base pricing is then modified by market conditions like drought, feed costs, weather, supply, demand and value added, like registered purebred stock. In the last two years (2007, 2008) commercial calf prices (not registered or show stock) have been lower than average, which seems to relate to very high feed costs. Day old dairy calves have sold for $5, for instance. That is the purchase price; the price to wean is higher. See the links for the current costs on weaning a calf and how to locate one of these calves in your area. Average prices (2008, west coast of the USA) for 400-600 lb calves beef calf is $1/lb. For a dairy steer, $0.75 - 0.80. Cattle prices are widely reported as a commodity item. Check the wall street journal or barrons for current prices. Local auctions will be higher or lower randomly, but usually within 15%. There are two main varieties of calves available for sale and purchase; beef calves and dairy calves. Beef calves will put on weight faster and typically result in more pounds of beef for fewer pounds of feed. If you are paying for your feed and do not wish to put as much money in purchasing grain like you would with dairy or dairy-beef cross calves, it's usually worth the higher cost for a beef calf. Majority of beef calves are sold as weanlings (i.e., from 3 to 6 to even 10 months of age), not as bottle calves like with most dairy calves. Thus is also a reason beef calves are more expensive upon purchase than dairy calves are. Dairy calves are a byproduct of the dairy industry. In order to milk a cow, she has to be pregnant and half of the resulting calves are male, which aren't used in a dairying operation. These surplus calves will be lower cost, but typically require 2 to 3 months of work before you can turn them out on pasture. Thus the lower initial cost is often offset by the cost of milk replacer and labor. Some dairy calves are half beef, half dairy. Typically these will be a little more efficient than a pure dairy in growing to slaughter size. If you have pasture available or a low-cost source of feed these may be the lower-cost option. Note, however, due to their lower efficiency at growing on similar quality feed that you would feed a beef calf, you still may find costs still increasing in the amount of supplement feed needed to grow them to slaughter. The health of the animal is more important than saving a dime a pound on the purchase price. If this is your first animal you should consider paying a little more to a farmer you trust to help you get a healthy animal.
What is the perfect age to wean a calf?
The problem is there is none. You have to go by the calf itself and the body condition of the cow (as well as markets and your management practices) to see whether it is good enough to be weaned off milk or off its dam A dairy calf is weaned off the bottle at around 3 to 4 months of age (some may want to go a little longer), and a beef calf can be weaned from its mother anywhere from 6 to 10 months of age. Beef calves may need to be weaned at 3 to 4 months (called "early weaning" if drought conditions do not allow a cow to provide enough forage to make milk for her calf. So it's all up to you and what you consider what age is "perfect" to wean a calf.
When do you weene foals?
actually it's called wean and you wean foals at about 6 or 7 months of age
At what age do cows produce milk?
After it is weaned, the farmer usually weans calves at about 10 months of age, while the cow may naturally wean the calf around 11-12 months of age. On the other hand, diary producing cows do not nurse their calves, the calf is separated from the cow at birth, the cow is then milked by machine and the milk is then further administered to the calf through bottle.
Why are you advised not to wean a baby before they are 17 weeks old?
Why are we advised not to wean a baby before they are 17 weeks old?
Does a cow mate with her own male calf?
No. Her "male calf" which would be a bull calf is much too young, when considered a calf, to mate with his dam. Typically producers try to separate or wean bull calves from their dams before they (the bull calves) start puberty. And in most cases bull calves are too young to breed their dams when their dams ARE in heat, or are separated from their mothers before their mothers calve again. However, if a producer wants to introduce inbreeding into their herd, especially if that herd is a purebred herd, then it is likely that a cow will mate with her son, but only when he's at breeding age, which is over 12 months of age.
