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Early weaning can be a great strategy to help reduce pressure on pasture. Great tool to have when we experience drought conditions. Thank you for listening!
Hosted by members of the University of Minnesota Extension Beef and Dairy Teams, The Moos Room discusses relevant topics to help beef and dairy producers be more successful. The information is evidence-based and presented as an informal conversation between the hosts and guests.
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Joe Armstrong: Welcome to The Moos Room, everybody. OG3, myself, Emily, and Brad, all in the same Zoom meeting, not in the same place. That'll happen soon.
Emily Krekelberg: [laughs] You could have just said studio and left it ambiguous.
Joe: I know. Soon, we'll be in the same place soon. I'm really excited.
Emily: That's going to be a podcast episode with beer.
Joe: Oh, absolutely. I don't think we can avoid that. Today, the drought conditions in Minnesota have not gotten any better. They're on their way to worsening. We're seeing people having to make decisions for their operations on the beef and the dairy side that are pretty difficult decisions to make. We're going to go through one of those decisions today, talk about how to walk through that process of early weaning on our beef calves. We're going to relate it to the dairy a little bit. Brad, what do you see up there at Morris on the dairy?
Bradley Heins: Well, we need some rain. I'll tell you that. In the last eight weeks, we've maybe had maybe about an inch of rain. Pastures were slow growing in the spring, then it heated up and they took off, and then it didn't rain. Now, they're really slow to growing back. We started grazing about the 10th of May with our lactating herd. We just put cows back on the pasture that we started with yesterday. That's 35 days roughly that we were doing. That's on half-day grazing. We've been feeding TMR in the barn because pastures, they're so slow growing back.
One thing that I've noticed is that these pastures are actually putting up seed heads really fast now. I think they're struggling to survive. They're drought-stressed. They're trying to reproduce. They're putting seed heads out at 8 inches tall. It's a tough situation here for our milking cows. We'll probably make it, but we'll be on half-day grazings for the whole summer. TMR during the day and we let them graze at night just to make sure all of our pasture last.
Emily: If things seeding so early, that also impacts the feed quality, I would imagine too, of what they're actually getting out there when they're grazing.
Bradley: Oh, of course, yes. The quality isn't quite as good as what it normally would if they're putting a seed head up really fast. Drought-stressed grass and plants aren't as high a quality yet either. Yes, it's a concern. In a couple of podcasts ago, we talked about summer annuals. We do have, let's see, about 10 acres of sorghum-sudangrass that's growing quite well. We'll have that probably 4th of July, second week of August, or, sorry, second week of July to start with the first grazing. We'll have a little bit of an insurance policy for the milking cows, but it's going to be a tough year for grazing if the floodgates don't open. It's not just Minnesota. It's really the whole Upper Midwest that's having this drought issue.
Joe: My big question now is even if we do get rain at this point, is it enough to save our production for this year or is that really if we get rain now because it's helping us for next year?
Bradley: Our production is already lost for this year. If it does rain, it'll help the regrowth, but we're certainly not going to have as much pasture production as what we have every year. The more rain we get, obviously, it'll make the grass grow this year, but we need a lot to start sort of banked up for next year too. We need inches and inches here to make it work. They're going to still want to eat no matter if there's grass there or not. You might have to rotate them faster or switch them.
One thing that we've done is we plant oats with the hope of getting it to grain, but we're going to start grazing that because the oats, it's just lost. We're actually chopping some oats today for silage. It's June 16th and it's headed out already. We're going to start grazing some so we can get some forage into these. This is for heifers. We can maybe stretch our pastures as well. That's an option for dairy producers or beef producers if they have a small grain that may or may not look good. Ours didn't really look good. There's not a lot of forage out there, but it'll give us two weeks of grazing.
Joe: Let's transition to the beef side and talk early weaning. It's one of the things that we try to do to take some pressure off the pasture. It's not without difficulty. It's a completely different timeline, a completely different strategy. When we move forward, our calves are a completely different age as we talk about vaccines and everything else. There's a lot to consider when we talk about early weaning. Really, we're talking about body condition on the cows too. That's what we're trying to save.
Not only are we saying, "Okay, we're going to take some pressure off the pasture and save a little pasture," but we're also going to hopefully not drop our body condition on cows and take some pressure off those cows from having to lactate and feed that calf so that, again, we can go into next year ready to go. We're looking way down the road trying to figure this out. Now, the problem is you got to make this decision before all your grass is gone. We're really talking about having to make that decision pretty quickly here in the summer and deciding to wean those calves at three or four months instead of five, six, and seven.
Bradley: That probably plays a big role into how much stored feed you have as well because if you early-wean them, now you put them on stored feed. Do you have enough stored feed to get to the end of the year? Not to say that early weaning is bad, but you want to make sure that you have that too or you don't want to have to go out and start buying feed either, which can be expensive and probably will be this year.
Joe: When we start to see $7 corn, it becomes a little difficult to stomach putting those calves in the dry lot and feeding them. Because when they're weaned, they're not magically just not going to eat. You got to feed them something. Usually, that comes with a grain or a relatively high-concentrate diet to be able to help them to grow with their small rumen capacity. That's where we're headed. That's something where, now, I'm going to advocate as a veterinarian.
You need to have a nutritionist in your system for something like this. To be able to talk through this kind of situation, look at your stored feeds. Look at what you have available. Figure out how to make a low-cost ration for these calves that's still going to allow them to grow and gain and make their potential. A nutritionist is going to be a huge piece of this as we move forward with early weaning in a lot of states, not just Minnesota.
Emily: We should probably mention too that early weaning is a practice that, by some herds, is used every season. It's not necessarily just a drought response strategy, although it is very useful in that way too. Because I know when I was working in Central Minnesota, I had a few producers that I worked with that did early weaning. That was their standard operating procedure. Did you ever run across many of those, Joe, when you were in practice?
Joe: Yes, I've seen it a couple of times and a lot of it has to do with space. How much pasture do you have? How much access do you have to be able to rotate and do those kind of things? If you don't have the space, sometimes the calves got to come off earlier. Then the decision becomes, "Well, how long do you keep the calves? If the market's good enough, can you sell them right away after weaning them?" making sure their bunk broke, making sure that someone else doesn't have to deal with that issue, but only holding onto them for a couple weeks or four weeks a month at the most and then getting them gone.
The market has to be really good to be able to do that. With everyone early weaning or a big proportion of the industry early weaning this year, I don't think that's going to be a good possibility. Then it becomes really your early weaning and really focusing on getting the nutrition right for these calves and getting the pressure off the pasture and holding onto them for quite a while and either selling at the same time you would or if they're already in the lot and you've got the space and time, push them out so you catch a different market. There's a lot to think about with this.
One of the things that I want to bring up right away is you can look at your herd and decide, "Okay, who needs to have the pressure taken off of them the most?" Usually, when we're struggling like this, you can use body condition to tell you who needs a break and needs that calf off of them and look at the cows. A lot of times, it's going to be your second calf heifers because they're still trying to grow and feed this calf. That pressure might do you the best good and offer a compromise. You're not early-weaning everyone, but you're early-weaning the calves off of the cows that need the help the most. I think that's a good option, especially if you have limited space in a dry lot or a confinement setting for those calves.
Emily: Well, what do you know? It all comes down to management at the end of the day.
Joe: Yes, it does.
Emily: Shocking how that always comes up on this show.
Joe: It really does. It really does. It's just so shocking every time we bring it up. I know everyone is so surprised that that word made it into the podcast today.
Bradley: I got a question.
Joe: Go ahead, Bradley.
Bradley: If you're early-weaning your calves, how does that affect the cow and reproduction of the cow? What do you do with the cow after you've early-weaned it? How does that affect her? Does she have more feed requirements now or less? What do you do with the cow? We talk about the calf all the time, but how about the cow?
Joe: The goal is to make sure you have eyes on all your animals a little more than you probably normally would because you're going to have a little more intensive management of everyone now, the early-weaned calves and the cow. With the cow, we really need to monitor that she doesn't get too high in her body condition because, now, she has less requirements because she's not going to be lactating anymore.
That's the point. We want her to have less requirements and potentially eat a little less or eat the same but not lose body condition. You got to be careful it doesn't go the other way too, especially if you're supplementing. Like Bradley talked about, he is supplementing his cows on pasture with TMR. If you're supplementing, you got to be careful that body condition doesn't creep up.
Now, we're back to those general management things that we talk about where we talk about bunk space if you're supplementing and watching your cow's body condition and making sure that group doesn't get too far on the heavy side because then you are going to have problems with calving and reproduction the next year. It's all connected, all a big management decision, but most of it is you're going to have eyes on your cattle more than you probably would in a normal year just to see what's going on.
On the calf side, what we really want to talk about is, okay, there's a lot of basic practices that we should take into account every year, but things are going to change just a little bit when we talk about early-weaned calves and the management and how intensive that is. For me, especially in a drought year, the reason that things are not great is because it's been hot and we don't have any rain. We need to reduce the stress on these calves as much as possible. That brings up heat stress in a hot, bright, sunny year like we're having.
Emily: Heat stress, super-hot topic right now. Ba-dum-tss-tss.
Bradley: We got sensors that we can put in cows to figure that one out.
Joe: Hey, there you go.
Bradley: That's your buzzword. Put a sensor in it.
Emily: Put a sensor in it.
Joe: Put a sensor in it. That's really one that Bradley studies right now is looking at, okay, we've got solar panels that we're using as shade and looking at cows and when they do have shade and when they don't have shade and how less stressed they are when they do have shade. One of the best things you can do for your calves and your cows in a year like this is make sure that they do have access to shade because it does make a huge difference, huge difference.
Shade is one. That's a big thing. Flies are another one. Flies cause a lot of stress to the animals. It also causes them to bunch. Then they're hotter again and we've got heat stress as an issue again. Taking care of flies is good. We just had Roger Moon on. He told you all about how to do that. If you haven't listened to that episode, you should go back and listen to it, but really, it's about being clean and making good management decisions on that end.
Emily: Oh, music to my ears.
Joe: [chuckles] Then also using products when you need to, whether it's a Poron or if your calves already have fly tags in, you're probably solid there.
Emily: Or diverging into heat stress. It seems silly to mention it when we're talking about it in terms of drought, but water is also going to be critical. Fresh, cool water. Just have to throw that in there so that I can sleep tonight.
Joe: Oh, absolutely. Got to talk about water and these calves on the early wean. All the same things apply for low-stress weaning and getting calves trained to a new environment. You want that water on the fence line because calves are going to walk the fence to see where everything is. They're going to find that water easier if it's on the fence line. Same with the bunk. You want the bunk on the fence line as well.
You can put hay in that bunk so that it stands up above the top of the bunk. Calves will become interested and curious to go explore that bunk and then you can top-dress your grain on top, especially in that first week or so. All good strategies for getting calves used to that new environment and being bunk broke and water broke. The last one that we should probably talk about on that end of things on the management side when it comes to conditions is dust.
We hear a lot about dust, a lot about dust pneumonia. When it's hot and dry like this, there is a lot of dust out there. It can be very irritating for calves in their upper respiratory tract and their eyes. Eye irritants and having irritated eyes from that dust is a big predisposing factor for pink eye. That's one reason to control dust, but then also pneumonia as well. Inhaling that dust and having that blowing in their face all day is also not a good idea.
Now, here's where we get into a little bit of tricky things when it comes to management for me. A windbreak is probably the best solution. Just keep the wind out of where it is dusty and then you don't have as much dust. Some people really are a big component of sprinklers or watering down a dry lot to make sure that there isn't as much dust. I think that's a good idea.
You have to be careful and very targeted with that water because if you have sprinklers in the yard and you're just sprinkling the yard and you're getting the calves wet but not soaked, you're causing more heat stress issues than you're solving with those sprinklers. It's a fine line. If you're going to turn the sprinklers on and the calves are going to get wet, you better soak them, or else you're creating another insulating barrier in addition to their hair. They're just going to get hotter and more stressed. Be careful with that one.
Emily: I have a question, Joe. You had mentioned this earlier on about how doing early weaning can impact some of the other scheduled things in the management of the calves and the herd overall. You mentioned vaccinations. We all know how much you love vaccinations and talking about them. What sort of impacts would that have when early weaning as far as timing on those goes?
Joe: Most of this is going to depend on calf age for me. When we're weaning calves at three and four months old, their immune system may or may not be ready to respond to a vaccine program. They still have quite a bit of passive immunity from the colostrum that they got from mom. That might still interfere with some of the vaccines that are available to give these calves. It really depends on age.
If you're talking about weaning a range of two, three, and four-month-old calves, then I'm a pretty big advocate of making sure you take care of heat stress issues, flies, dust, really focusing on the nutrition side of things. Maybe not vaccinating those calves before weaning and coming back at a later time after the stress of weaning is over and they're really settled in their new pen and then vaccinating potentially on the same schedule that you would before really pushing it to four or five, six months before you get what you would normally do at preweaning and just do it after at the same age range.
If they're getting a little older and they're on the borderline and you're early weaning, let's say, four and five months, then there's a little more wiggle room, I think, in terms of how developed their immune system is. I think you can come in pre-weaning and get a set of shots in. Then do again at weaning like you normally would or follow your normal schedule. Just do it a little earlier. If the majority of your calves are under four months old, I really don't see a benefit in doing that because you still have so much passive immunity there in a well-managed herd with good colostrum and good nutrition on the cow side.
I don't think I would probably come in preweaning and weaning with vaccines and I'd wait. That's the big difference. I know that can be a little complicated. That's where you need to talk to your veterinarian and get it really tailored to your system and what you need to do. Castration is another piece of this. If you haven't done it already, and I would say in my ideal world, you would've done it at birth or at turnout already.
If you still have calves that need to be castrated, you really don't want to do that at weaning. If possible, you want to do that ahead of weaning by three to four weeks to make sure that stress isn't doubled up with the weaning process. If the calves are really young, then, again, we're talking about maybe delaying it into laps or weaning just to not double up that stress around weaning in a new environment and the heat and the flies and everything all at the same time. You want to remove that stressful event from the stressful event of weaning.
Emily: Another consideration probably is what about our producers that are doing creep feeding for their calves. How does that interact or what role does that play in early weaning?
Joe: Creep feeding is a really good strategy to take pressure off of pastures too. If you're creep-feeding your calves on pasture, you can take the pressure off the pasture from the calves eating that creep rather than pasture. That can really reduce the pressure on pastures by about 15%, 20%, depending on what system and what study you're looking at. That's a great strategy. If you're going to early-wean, might be more of a necessary strategy to help get these calves ready to transition a little earlier than they would normally to the feedlot.
Feeding that creep three to four weeks ahead of the weaning is going to help develop that rumen and get it ready to utilize nutrients earlier than it would if you weren't feeding creep. That's one of the things that you should be thinking about. It's going to save your pasture grass in that time while you're feeding it, but it's also going to help your transition to that feedlot for those calves. Thank you, everybody, for listening. If you have comments, questions, scathing rebuttals, anything we talked about today, reach out. Send an email to themoosroom@umn.edu.
Emily: That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu.
Joe: You can find us on Twitter @UMNmoosroom and @UMNFarmSafety. Thank you for listening, everybody. We will catch you next week.
Emily: Okay, bye.
Joe: Bye.
Bradley: I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you go through and have to edit her out every single time.
Emily: We're getting off-track, boys.
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